


walking arm in arm, you hope it don't get harmed

by teethofthegale



Category: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, BAMF Cecil, Cecil is Mostly Human, Crossover, Drunkenness, F/M, Fluff, Headcanon, Hurt Carlos, Injury, Love Letters, M/M, Psychological Torture, Re-Education, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, carlos is cute, flower language is official writing language of night vale, singing is official writing language of the evil league of evil
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-06
Updated: 2013-11-18
Packaged: 2017-12-25 20:15:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 31,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/957181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teethofthegale/pseuds/teethofthegale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He didn’t have any illusions that acceptance alone would cement his place in the Evil League of Evil.<br/>He’d have to do well at his new missions, or he’d be quickly, quietly disposed of. If anything, his rite of acceptance into the Evil League of Evil would only increase in intensity. He’d have to top the stunt that put him here, and then top it again.<br/>His brain, usually so clear (he blames this on the alcohol) stutters, restarts, and then mutters sibilantly, “You’ll need to do worse than murder.” </p><p>When Billy realizes that the Evil League of Evil want him to do even worse things than the murder that made him (in)famous, he drops out. You don't drop out of the League- it's just not done. Bad Horse wants him dead, and now he's got the worst of the worst on his tail. He escapes into the desert, where he reaches the strangest place he's ever been.<br/>The voice on the radio tells him, "Welcome to Night Vale."</p><p>Meanwhile, Carlos is missing. Cecil thinks he's just retreated into his lab to wrestle with another impossible Night Vale phenomenon, when he finds Carlos' note: he's been taken for re-education by the sheriff's secret police. Somehow, Cecil has to get Carlos back before it's too late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. crying alone/just us two

**Author's Note:**

> These chapters will alternate between Billy, and what's going on in Night Vale. Half this chapter is Billy angst, while the other half is Cecil/Carlos fluff, so it balances out neatly. Hope you enjoy!

LOS ANGELES: THE LAIR OF THE EVIL LEAGUE OF EVIL

As Dr. Horrible leaves the meeting-room, he feels the sweat inching down from under his collar, soaking the back of his crisp crimson lab coat. It reminds him unpleasantly of the feeling he has long been familiar with- his sixth sense warning him of impending danger. In the past, this feeling has been defended by Captain Hammer hurling a car at his head, or smashing in one of his inventions, more often than not an invention that had taken special painstaking care, along with a clandestine operation to obtain its materials and/or fuel. He stops outside the door, blinking as his eyes adjust behind the dark shades of his goggles to the dim light of the smoky room beyond, so different from the meeting-room’s quiet antiseptic glare.

 He coughs as he inhaled the dark cloud of nicotine and other, less legal substances, which seemed to fill the room. Honestly, a small part of his brain scolds, those lower-level villains and henchmen were just asking for a nice bout of mouth and throat cancer. Though a glowing cigarette did add a level of badassery to any operation, and created a husky layer of dead throat tissue to an evil laugh, the eventual addiction and decreased lung capacity weren’t at all desirable. He was glad for the barrier that his goggles provided between the acrid smoke and his sensitive corneas.

He slowly moves into the blurred vision of flashing lights and gyrating bodies, headed toward the restrooms at the rear of the room. Unfortunately he has to pass the drinks bar to get there.

“Dr. Horrible!” Moist hails him, Bait on one arm, Switch on the other. He is supremely drunk- his face is completely dry of all moisture, and his eyes are glazed.

“You’re in the League now! Everything you ever wanted, Doctor!” he laughs, freeing his arms from the twins and lurching toward Dr. Horrible, who flinches, more from the unintended pain from Moist’s words than from his strangely dry embrace. Actually, the embrace almost feels… normal. He lifts one of Moist’s hands, and stares at the dry skin, almost desiccated from lack of moisture.

“Moist, you don’t look good at all,”  he says. “You’ve completely dehydrated yourself with all that alcohol.”

“Have a drink,” says Moist inanely. He is apparently speaking to himself, as he lifts up his stein glass (at least Dr Horrible sincerely hopes it’s _his_ stein glass) from a table, and tries to dump the near-full glass down his throat. Dr. Horrible relieves Moist of his drink, handing it to Bait, who is nowhere as inebriated as his friend. Bait's sister Switch comes up behind Dr. Horrible, and tugged Moist off, shepherding his drunken friend to a couch. 

Somebody hands Dr. Horrible a glass of something alcoholic, he doesn’t know what, but when he downs it, the sensation of approaching doom relaxes its hold on his tense shoulders. He takes another, and another, chugging the drinks without really tasting them. Someone proposes a toast, in his honor, and he smiles and is gracious, but he just can’t make himself care. He escapes as the company downs their glasses in unison, into the bathroom (his original destination). The sensation is back, a hundred times worse, as if someone’s replaced the skin on his back with earthworms. The alcohol’s only made it worse. He sits down heavily on a toilet seat, closing the stall firmly behind him, as he tries to ignore the sounds of retching going on in the other stalls. Apart from the sensation, he’s numb, through and through. The sensation has to mean something if it can make it past the walls of nothing that surrounds his heart.

Why is he so on edge? He’s a member of the Evil League of Evil, something he’s longed for since the age of eight. The noise outside is a party in his honor, and he’s finally infamous beyond his haziest dreams. For the moment, he ignores the festering emptiness where his heart- where _she_ should- He ends that train of thought-after all, he knows how it ends.

“It’s the Evil League of EVIL,” he repeats to himself. “Come on, you should be celebrating your victory, not chasing phantom worries about that ham-handed corporate tool!”

The problem is that he _isn’t_ worried about Captain Hammer, maybe for the first time since- well- ever. He’s more worried about the other member of the Evil League of Evil. He’d seen the incredulous ways that the other villains had looked at him, as if judging him for the thing that had granted him acceptance into the League, and finding him decidedly lacking. Not all the members were happy with him, he knew that. And he knew that he wasn’t a full member yet, by any means. There would be more challenges, more missions, to keep up membership, and since he was the newest, the least desirable jobs would fall to him. He didn’t have any illusions that acceptance alone would cement his place in the Evil League of Evil. He’d have to do well at his new missions, or he’d be quickly, quietly disposed of. If anything, his rite of acceptance into the Evil League of Evil would only increase in intensity. He’d have to top the stunt that put him here, and then top it again.

His brain, usually so clear (he blamed this on the alcohol) stutters, restarts, and then mutters sibilantly, “You’ll need to do worse than murder.”

That mutter, from the recesses of his brain, resounds through his body, shoving his head down into his palms without his knowledge.

“No, it won’t be murder,” he counters weakly. “That’s so- unimaginative.” The new bit of brain chuckles, “You think that the League cares about originality? You got in for murder- do you think they _care_ about her?”

“Shut up!” he screams at his own brain. No one outside reacts- yelling threats is pretty common here.

Dr. Horrible (or is he Billy now? He can’t remember) slams his gloved hands against the dirty beige dividers of the stalls, until his hands are sore and his insides are more numb than before. Tears are fogging up the space behind his eyes. The pain silences the nagging voice in his brain, but does nothing for the yawning gulf inside.

If he doesn’t care, it shouldn’t hurt this much.

NIGHT VALE: CECIL’S HOUSE

Cecil is so glad to be home. Every day seems like a long day now, and this long day was longer than most. He steps carefully inside the bloodstone circle that surrounds his apartment building, and pushes open his own door. Once inside, he let out a sigh of relief as he sets his messenger bag down on the counter. He murmurs a quick chant, turning outward to face the bloodstones. Though he considers himself to be strictly non-practicing, after days like this one, it’s a nice fallback.

Strong arms grip his shoulders in a hug, and he has to restrain himself from reaching for the pistol he keeps in his suit pocket. The distinctive smell of miscellaneous chemicals and aftershave fills his nostrils, and he leans into the embrace.

“Carlos,” he growls. “What did I tell you about stealth hugs?”

 Despite three years in Night Vale, Carlos still had not realized that hugging from behind was a bad idea, as most ancient eldritch abominations attacked in a similar fashion.

“Sorry,” Carlos replies, turning him loose, and turning away to do up the dead-bolts and padlocks on the door. “You really, really looked like you needed a hug.”

He looks so sad, Cecil gives him a hug in return. “I did,” he whispers against Carlos’ chest. “Just not a kraken-y one.”

Carlos snorts. “I picked up some pizza from Big Rico’s on the way home. You haven’t had your mandatory slice this week, have you?”

“Carlos?!”

“Sorry, what?”

“You are perfect.”

Carlos gives half a smile.

“No, I’m not. Why can I remember Big Rico’s, but I can’t remember basic stuff like how to hug properly?”

He turns his head away as Cecil tries to steal a kiss.

“It’s ok,” he whispers. “As far as I’m concerned, you’ll always be perfect.”

Carlos smiles, a full, normal smile. “You’d better eat. I know you forgot to eat lunch. You’re probably light-headed or something.”

“How did you know I forgot?” Cecil asks, wondering if Carlos’ third eye has begun to form yet.

Carlos points to the unopened paper bag still inside Cecil’s workbag.

“Damn,” says Cecil, with feeling. “Between the mutating homicidal band instruments and the weather, I forgot.”

“But you found my note,” Carlos says, touching the purple rose in Cecil’s lapel. Cecil puts his hands up to the rose, his face going all hot.

“I love your note, Carlos. It’s beautiful.”

Carlos flushes. “New rule, ok? No reading Carlos’ notes until after the lunch (and all the lunch, mind you) is eaten.”

Cecil pretends to sulk, but really he’s secretly happy that Carlos thought to remind him. While reaching for the napkins, he shyly passes a purple coneflower onto Carlos’ plate. Carlos almost stabs the flower with his fork before freezing.

“Oh, Cecil,” he breathes. “A note for me, too?”

After eating, they put on a movie- one of Carlos’ choice.

“It’s the first science-fiction movie ever,” he says, staring forward at the screen in rapt attention. “It’s the first movie to have a robot in it.”

Cecil wraps himself around Carlos, on the couch. Metropolis is a silent film, so Cecil is expecting to be bored, but he finds himself wrapped up in the storyline. He especially likes the part with the evil double of the female lead. When the final supertitle appears, he leans back and kisses Carlos, who kisses back, slowly, sleepily.

As they both drift off to sleep, Cecil can’t think of a happier time.

Of course, it won’t last long.


	2. heart in your throat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy gets an upsetting letter and makes a decision. Cecil has to deal with both an invasion of flying carnivorous books and Carlos' sudden radio silence.

 

LOS ANGELES: BILLY’S APARTMENT

It’s three or four in the morning when Billy drives Moist home. The Evil League of Evil never showed their faces after his induction, and though he hung around as long as he was able, poor Moist could only wait so long. He was so dry that Billy had to pour a few bottles of water over his head before Moist was able to walk by himself to his own front door. Billy accompanied him inside, still worried that Moist’s gross motor functions were only operating at 50% or less, and made sure he was turned onto his side to sleep before he left him. While Moist fell into sleep the moment Billy closed and locked his door, Billy himself did not sleep. He paced his entire apartment, thinking hard of nothing the entire time. His alarm went off in his bedroom, and on reflex he glanced at his watch, which he’d worn so he wouldn’t be late to the meeting of the Evil League of Evil. It was Wednesday. _Laundry day._

He strips the thing off, sending it flying into a corner of his lab, and peels up a little of the skin on his wrist below by mistake as he attacks the indentation marks with a scrub brush, soap, and water. The pain makes him feel focused, unlike the soreness still pulsing in his knuckles. He keeps scrubbing until blood darkens the water in the sink, until his entire wrist is encircled in fine cuts from the scrub brush bristles. The indentation marks are gone.

Billy wakes crumpled in a frowsy, disgusting pile in the middle of the lab, on the disgusting carpet (partially bald and mostly stained from being subjected to years of chemical spills). His goggles have pressed two tight, red circles around his eyes, and as he takes them off, bits of his face begin to ache as the blood flows back where it should be. Without bothering to remove his clothes, he steps straight into the roaring flow of the shower, jerking slightly as the frigid water strikes him. The raw skin of his wrist stings and smarts as he holds it directly under the jets from the showerhead, ostensibly to clean the wound, but the pain keeps his mind free of other thoughts. An added benefit.

The flow sucks his clothing tight against his skin, the red coat painting his body like a crimson wound. He needed to do laundry anyway.

He’s half dressed, drying his hair, taking his time drowsily (his lab coat sopping in a corner of the shower) when a knock on the door startles him into full alertness. He grabs for the infrared monitor resting on the commode, and feels his stomach clench. It’s Dead Bowie. Dead Bowie, at his door. He really shouldn’t be surprised that the Evil League of Evil knows where he lives. But then, he wasn’t exactly expecting them to come _visiting_ , for Godsake. Quickly, he pulls on a t-shirt, but hesitates. He’s loath to don yet another red lab coat. But he goes to his closet anyway, forcing himself to put on his spare lab coat. Appearances, are, after all, imperative with the League. He goes to open his door, the newest prototype of his Death Ray in hand, and sees the goggles on the floor just in time. Looping them over his head, he pulls them down to cover his eyes, just as Dead Bowie slams something heavy (most probably his shoulder) into the door.

Billy trips the button to open the door, just as Dead Bowie takes another stab at realizing his dreams of being a human bowling ball. He almost smashes into Billy before he can dodge.

“Dr. Horrible,” the ELE member says, raising a hand formally. “I trust you slept well after your night of… triumph.”

Billy doesn’t like the way Dead Bowie describes the previous night, or the way that his makeup-caked face twists as he speaks. But he nods, smiles menacingly, etc. All the proper responses.

“You may be aware that not all the League members are convinced that you truly earned the right to join us. After all, it was the good Captain you were originally aiming for, and not his girl friend….ahh, what’s-her-name….”  

“Penny,” says Billy through tight jaws that won’t seem to move.

Dead Bowie gives him one of those knowing looks that makes him want to vomit. His neck begins to prickle with sweat.

“We all know who you were aiming for-that’s all that counts.”

Billy has a sudden urge to slam the door onto Dead Bowie’s hand, placed so nonchalantly against the doorframe. “Why are you here? You’ve told me only things that I already know.”

“I’m here to deliver a certain letter. You didn’t go down to check your mail this morning, by the way.” He hands Billy a stack of mail. On top is a thick envelope.

“Well, I think you’ve fulfilled _your_ mission,” Billy says lightly. He’s relieved that his voice doesn’t shake.

Dead Bowie looks at him balefully, and at first Billy thinks they’ll have to have a showdown of some kind. But then Dead Bowie looks down at the Death Ray, and Billy knows he’s already won.

“I’ll see myself out,” Dead Bowie says shortly, and slams the door behind him.  

Billy’s hands are already twisting up the distinctive silver seal, and staring down at the letters on the page without really reading them. The audiochip is singing loudly, but the humming in his ears is too much- he can’t comprehend a word. He stares down at the paper, finds the beginning, reads enough to know that there’s no way he can carry out these orders. One phrase of the letter resounds in his head, and he tries to shut it down before it goes viral, but it’s too late.

He dials Moist before he does something he’ll regret. “They want me to kill again,” he blurts as soon as Moist answers. “But it’s worse this time. This time, it’s a school.”

“Doesn’t sound too bad if there are no kids inside,” Moist mused. “Will there be kids inside?”

“Only all of the high school. And before you ask, the ELE specified date, time and place. Ten o’clock, Monday the 23rd. No weaseling out of this one by blowing it up during the weekend. I’m so screwed.”

“You couldn’t just …?” Moist starts, but Billy finished.  “No, out of the question.”

He let out a hiss of breath before hanging up the phone, and sinking into his chair.

He has five days before he had to carry out the operation. At least, that’s what he thinks, until he looks back at the letter.

“Accept this mission by phone

 no later than Thursday at noon

if your answer isn’t positive

it’s uncertain how long you’ll live.”

He checks the clock on his computer. One o’clock.

He has twenty-three hours to vanish. Twenty-three hours before the ELE will be out for his blood.

 

NIGHT VALE: CECIL’S HOUSE

            Carlos is already gone when Cecil wakes to the familiar chirping of the cricket under his bed. Carlos must have moved him into his room before he left. He pulls himself up on one elbow, and shoves off the covers, checking the clock above his bed. Well, wonderful. He’s going to be late. He pulls on a fresh button-down, his vest, and a crisp tie, and pulls on his shoes, all as he runs to the bathroom to brush his teeth. The door to the bathroom is being temperamental again, refusing to open for him, and he has to offer it uncooked bacon before it opens. By that time, he knows he’s going to be five minutes late.

Station management will not be pleased. He scrubs his hair hurriedly, brushes his teeth, and grabbed an apple as he ran out the door, almost tripping over part of the bloodstone circle. He has to run back inside- he’s forgotten to check the oven, his sock drawer, and under his pillow for news releases, and he grabs the pages, crumpling them into his messenger bag in his haste to leave. He slips on his suit jacket, checking to make sure his pistol is in place.

 Somehow, he gets to work on time. Intern Dana greets him with a mug of coffee as he comes in.

“Morning, Cecil. You’re early today.”

“I think it’s a fluke. Maybe my house was caught in a localized time delay again.”

“That would make sense. I got all the equipment ready for today’s broadcast, so you can go in whenever you’re ready.”

She hands him a couple more news items, and he rearranges them on his clipboard.

“I’m going to go in now, set up for the broadcast.”

Cecil goes into the booth, and begins to set out the news items in the correct order on the table. As he moves his messenger bag to the spare chair, he realizes that he forgot to grab the lunch that Carlos had packed for him. He could remember it now: he’d seen it sitting on the counter as he’d grabbed bacon for the bathroom door.

Damn. He’d wanted to actually eat it today, too.

 

Cecil sighs heavily as he checks his phone for texts under the mic table. As usual, he’s texted Carlos maybe a few times this morning (a few meaning perhaps eight or nine times). He’s only asked him the usual stuff, like _How is work going_ , and _You are beautiful_ and _I see you are measuring a chemical now. What does that red chemical do when you throw it on the ground_? Just standard stuff, although, as always, Carlos got a bit fussy when Cecil asked about his chemicals, texting something about not using his third eye “for frivolous purposes like espionage.” Cecil should have known better: Carlos’ chemicals were personal and very close to his heart. Maybe he had offended his darling Carlos? But soon after he had asked about the red chemical, Carlos had texted him a picture of the chemical (now green and bubbling) with the tagline “Here’s what happens when you heat it up :) Isn’t that exciting!”

That had been right before the situation with the curious flapping book-birds had escalated, and Cecil was now straining his third eye and his voice as he gave safety tips. “Carry umbrellas, Molotov cocktails, and/or a flamethrower to protect yourself from the hovering beasts,” he intones, wishing that Carlos would text him soon and tell him whether or not he’d shut the windows in the lab: the book-birds had shown a proclivity for exploring houses and dismembering those they found in their wake. “As always, the City Council says that, though these book-birds seem to be a different species from your everyday novel or cookbook, all books are ill-advised at best, and unsafe for private ownership.” Clearing his throat surruptiously, he adds, “And now, a word from our sponsors.”

After nodding to Dana to begin the prerecorded message, Cecil scrubs a hand over his eyes, checking his phone with the other.

“Third time in a minute you’ve done that,” Dana says. “Carlos will be fine, don’t worry. He should have plenty of Molotov cocktail ingredients in his lab.”

“Yes, but he needs to text me,” Cecil says, aware that he’s on the verge of whining. He takes a healthy swig of warm coffee to clear his throat.

“He’s probably coming up with a way to save the town again,” Dana says. “Can’t you use your third eye, and check on him?”

Cecil shakes his head. “No,” he says. “My eye’s focused on the situation with the bird beasts. I’ll need to warn Night Vale about the location of the birds… and I won’t be able to do that if I’m looking for Carlos.”

“Carlos is a lot tougher than he looks,” Dana says comfortingly. “He’ll manage just fine.”

“Thank you, Dana, for your reassurance,” he answers. He gives her a quick hug. “You’re a truly admirable intern.”

The prerecordered sponsored message is almost over, and Cecil straightens his aching back, ready to return to the news. Though he knows his perfect Carlos is smart enough to outwit the book-birds, he wishes that he knew for sure.

 

By the time that the book-bird situation is resolved, Cecil feels like he’s been wadded up, ironed out, and wadded up again, he’s so exhausted. He leaves the recording booth as quickly as he can, and thankfully he’s managed to fill out his Alert Citizen card, as all the stop-signs seem to be in their proper places this afternoon.

He glances at his phone from time to time.

Carlos still hasn’t texted him back.

When he gets back to the apartment, it’s cold and empty. No Carlos, anywhere.

He even pries open the door at the back of his closet that technically doesn’t exist (according to Carlos, anyway), and sees nothing but darkness and hears nothing but the sound of the sands of time, lightly grinding past his frail outcrop of universe like the desert winds outside. The abyss beyond the door swallows his calls for Carlos. Some of the abrading grit seeps through the door, gliding over his scuffed dress shoes before he can get the door shut again.

He tries to open his third eye, to find Carlos, but the thing’s as exhausted as he is, and blatantly refuses to cooperate. Even though Carlos is probably just working another late night, dissecting a dead book-bird and finding out its secrets, or extracting DNA from a willing angel participant, Cecil feels like Carlos has abandoned him.

He eats the lunch Carlos packed him for dinner. Another purple rose is tucked inside, but it’s wilted now.

He curls on the couch, his head turned toward the door, his hearing unusually clear, as he waits for Carlos.

On the coffee table, his phone remains silent and dead.

 

The next morning, Cecil wakes at a horribly early hour. It’s because he’s rolled off the narrow sofa, hitting the floor with a thud that brought him awake. At first, Cecil thought that the thud meant that Carlos had just come in through the door. But then he realizes that he’s cold, and on his living room floor, and Carlos never came home last night.

Carlos never came home last night.

Cecil gets dressed despite the hour, but he doesn’t head to work. He drives downtown, passes Big Rico’s, and pulls into the narrow alleyway where he always parks. As he walks past Big Rico’s, he can smell early-morning baking. He holds his palms up to the door of the lab, and the door opens with a faint sigh.

 “Sorry,” he whispers. It’s really too early for anyone to be up. As he hikes up the flight of stairs that leads to Carlos’ lab, his third eye twitches. There’s something wrong.

The lab, like his house, is silent. Not just the kind of silent that means that Carlos is working, or thinking, just…silent. _And wrong_.

None of the buzzing machines or electrical contraptions that always greet Cecil to the lab are alive. Not a single light is on: there’s nothing but deep darkness inside Carlos’ lab.

Cecil slaps the light-switch panel, and the enormous florescent lights come on. Carlos is not sleeping on the tatty old loveseat in the corner, nor is he doing science anywhere in the lab. Carlos is not in the lab.

Cecil crunches through some broken glass, and he stoops down to examine the floor. A test tube’s remains covered the otherwise pristine floor by Carlos’ chemistry table. Someone’s cut their hand on the sharp shards: Cecil notices drops of blood and a larger bloody smudge on the pale floor, as if the person had fallen into the shards and then used the injured hand to shove themselves to their feet.

A beaker of red liquid stood on the tabletop, and Cecil recognizes it as the chemical from Carlos’ picture. Four purple spots waver before Cecil’s vision, and he thinks his third eye’s acting up again until he realizes that it’s actually four purple cornflower petals, scattered across the table next to the chemical. A few drops of blood have also adhered to one of the petals.

Cecil finds himself sitting in one of the hard-backed lab chairs.

Four cornflower petals. Carlos has been taken by the secret police.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: Billy hotwires a car without googling instructions; Cecil deals with Carlos' disappearance.  
> See you next Friday!


	3. the man in the white Ford

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy gets out of Los Angeles; Cecil visits Old Woman Josie.

LOS ANGELES: BILLY’S APARTMENT

            There’s no way Billy can leave any Freeze Ray or Death Ray prototypes in his apartment: it’s only a matter of time before the ELE desends upon his place and ramsacks it. Billy starts the process of backing up his computer hardrive: he plans to completely wipe and then destroy his desktop moniter, as he can’t bring it with him. As the files transfer, he shreds his hardcopy blueprints of his weapons designs, along with any other documents that seem important: they’re all scanned and backed up to harddrive.

He packs the already built ray prototypes in a duffel bag (taking care to  completely disassemble them first), along with two lab coats (one white, one red), his goggles and boots, and some extra civilian clothing. His laptop goes into the duffel as well, along with the webcam he uses for blog posts. There’s no telling when he’ll do another again, but he’s keeping it anyway, just in case.

            Billy glances toward the candid shot of Penny that still stands on the bookcase by his armchair. He really, really shouldn’t bring it with him- even now, he can barely stand to look at it- at her smiling face. His desktop computer chirps, letting him know that the files have finished backing up, and he wipes the originals, stowing the backups in his duffel bag. He slowly zips up the black bag, glancing around his small apartment for what will surely be the last time. His lab is really the only part of the apartment he’ll miss. He only feels regret that he’ll be leaving Moist with no way to contact him; it’s for his friend’s own safety, but it’s likely that Billy will never see his friend again.

            On impulse, Billy grabs the photo of Penny from beside his chair and slides it out of the frame. Folded once, it just fits inside the breast pocket of his white lab coat, where his heart would be. (The red lab coat doesn’t have one.) He can’t stand the idea of anyone else looking at her.

            He pulls on his favorite hoodie and jeans, along with high-top sneakers, and straps his newest, most compact stun ray to his arm, pulling his sleeve down over it. The lab coat works better, but he can’t attract attention.

            His passport and boarding passes are already packed in the duffel, and as long as he disassembles the stun ray in the airport bathroom, he should be fine. He plans to check the duffel, so the components shouldn’t slow him down in getting through security. As he slips a few last tools into the bag, along with his passport and boarding passes, he bumps the TV remote onto the floor, and the TV comes on with a whine. He lifts the remote, about to switch it off, then sees one of those idiotic reporters standing in front of LAX. Almost simultaneously, his phone vibrates.

“Unfortunately for those hoping for a trip out of here this weekend, all flights have been cancelled for today and tomorrow, as Professor Normal has announced his new Get-A-Free-Biobomb deal. He’ll be planting these mysterious biological weapons in your luggage, complimentary airline meal, or airplane blankets in order to infect those nearest to you on the flight. Captain Hammer comments,

 ‘Well, um… I don’t know. I don’t understand science-y crap. Science is stupid and not fun. Also it hurts. The only answer science needs is my fists.’”

When Billy checks his phone, it says almost exactly the same thing, minus the Captain Hammer quote and plus a promise of a refund.

He exhales, scraping his fingernails across his wrist, across the thick raw line of skin where his wristwatch had been. He’ll have to steal a car- no way he can take a taxi across the country. He checks to make sure he’s got everything, then zips up the duffel. It makes a final noise. He closes the door behind him, locks it.

Billy walks ten blocks in the midmorning rain, hunching his shoulders against the thin misting droplets that still manage to soak everything. He keeps his hood up, pulled higher than necessary to obscure his face, although he hasn’t seen any signs that the ELE have guessed at his plans. Still, he hikes the ten blocks. He doesn’t want to steal a car from anywhere too near his apartment- way too suspicious, and besides, there’s a large carpark near a fancy hotel down here-they can stand to lose a car.

The surveillance is hardly worth mentioning, and he reroutes all the cameras with a program on his laptop before entering the carpark. On the second floor up, there’s an older Ford sedan that’s perfect for his purposes. The gas gauge is full, and most importantly, it has zero bells and whistles.

 It takes him ten seconds to unlock the driver’s side door with the help of a wire coathanger. He slides onto the leather seat, puts his duffel in the shotgun seat, and pulls out a screwdriver, wire strippers, and electrical tape. He pries at the panel by the column, and a mess of wires spill out. He considers googling “how to hotwire a car,” but then he sees the wires more clearly and laughs.

After taping up the appropriate wires, he carefully breaks the tumblers in the ignition to unlock the colomn. The engine starts, and he slams the door closed, ready to drive off.

A car alarm goes off, then another, and another. He sighs as frost coats his rearview mirror. Johnny Snow lands on the hood of the car he’s just commandeered, pointing his terribly shoddy frost gun at him. The thing’s a mess, all taped together, and he can actually see some exposed wiring by the barrel.

“Stop right there! You can’t steal that car!”

It figures that the Heroes Guild would have his wannabe nemesis doing something as tragically mundane as watching for car thieves. Billy puts the car in reverse, and Johnny Snow slips off the hood, tumbles backward onto the concrete, but he’s cushioned by his scruffy blue parka and bounces back up immediately. He ices the back window of the car as Billy speeds past. The car alarms start up again- he’s bouncing from car hood to car hood, and creating an almost deafening wall of sound.

 Billy’s glad it wasn’t Captain Hammer- he would have just thrown the car, with Billy inside, instead of spraying the back window with a little frost. He drives down the ramp in the direction of the ground level of the carpark, Johnny Frost right behind him, and is about to turn down it when a red minivan hurtles upward towards him, and he has to swerve slightly to avoid it. Johnny Frost takes that opportunity to ice his front window, and he curses as he bangs his head against the sedan ceiling as he tries to see out the side window and avoid hitting anything.  Maybe the stupid poseur was more of a threat than he thought. It’s so humid in the carpark that the ice already looks drippy, and a few windshield swipes clear it up. He’s squinting to peer through the mist of ice that still covers the window as he drives down to the ground level and through the gate, but it works.

He swerves around the corner, Johnny Snow still behind him. He’s still shooting that stupid gun at him, but more often than not, he misses and ices something (or someone) else. Billy swears under his breath as passerby leap to the sidewalks, and businesspeople peer from their windows. Though Snow’s a failure at catching him, he’s destroying Billy’s plan, just the same. All this unwanted attention will definitely pose a problem: no normal, sane car thief with a well-developed sense of self-preservation would stay in the car with Johnny Snow chasing them. Billy has no intention of leaving the car, which would probably attract even more attention at this point. If the ELE decide to check out the situation… that would not be good.

Johnny Snow slips on some of his own ice, bloodying his nose on the pavement. Billy takes this opportunity to turn sharply around a corner, and back into a convenient ally. He pulls the car up behind an overflowing dumpster, and lets the engine idle. Johnny Snow spurts by in an icy blur. That had been much too easy for Billy, but then, Johnny Snow was not the brightest. As heroes go, he was decidedly subpar, not even a challenge. Billy pulls out of the ally, and loses himself in the rapid flow of lunch hour traffic.

He’s almost out of the city when he pauses for a stoplight, and a red van pulls up beside him, the kind with suspicious, painted over windows. He pulls up his sleeve, priming his charged stun ray, and cracking the opposite window. He’s going to feel really stupid (and definitely not horrible at all) if that van just turns out to be some pizza delivery or lawncare service. But then the driver’s side window gets cranked down, and he’s staring down the barrel of a Uzi. Fury Leika’s on the other side of it. He exhales, wondering what the bullets will feel like, tearing into his spinal cord, his ribs, his heart. Maybe he’ll feel something there then. He’s ready for the pain.

 

But his body plays him false. Before he can think, he’s fired his stun ray at her (he misses), and is pulling forward into oncoming traffic, as she strafes his car with bullets. Even in his haze of sudden adrenaline, he’s somewhat offended that it was Fury Leika that they’d picked to assassinate him. She was probably the least badass of the villains- the whole Miss Havisham look kind of messed it up for him. But after what he’d done to get into the League, he could see why she would jump at the chance to take him out. He swerves to miss a semitruck that, while endangering his life, separates him from any more of Fury’s repeated volleys of bullets. He’s trying to recover from the recoil of the stun ray when he realizes that all the cars are now headed towards him. He thinks he’s had dreams like this before.

He hears something snap in the steering column as he turns the car violently back onto the right side of the highway, but he has no time to check it out now. Now, he’s headed away from the exit that was supposed to take him to San Francisco, and out towards the exit into the mountains. He catches a glimpse of bright red in the mirror behind him, and floors the gas pedal, as he speeds off towards the mountains that tower over Los Angeles.

 

Billy drives for five miles before he stops shaking. After this, he’d be glad to never drive a car again, not that he’d ever really liked it. Honestly, how had he pulled some of those moves? He hadn’t driven in years.

He wishes he had his tight black gloves on now- they would at least stop his hands from shaking so much. He likes the adrenaline that’s still humming through him, though- it’s something different. From time to time, he looks up and out, over the sand-sculpted expanse before him. For the first time in a long while, he has no plan. Getting out, without implicating Moist in any way- that was his plan. Now, he realizes that he’d never expected his plan to work. Why should he? In a way, he’d been waiting for his plan to fail, so he’d be killed by the League, and that would have been the end of it.

He’d been ready to die when Fury Leika had stared at him. Why had his body taken over? Though he wanted to die, his body wanted him to live. Just basic instincts, he tells himself. And maybe, a little bit of righteous anger. He’d expected a more _creative_ assassination attempt from the freaking ELE, and this was all they gave him? That’s it, he told himself. Simple.

But the adrenaline had awakened something, something that had been ground down to little bits inside him. He couldn’t put a name to the emotion. But hey, at least it was something.

As the adrenaline began to wear off, he began to feel something more familiar: assorted hurts and bruises calling out from all over his body. He had whiplash from the driving, his entire left hip was aching furiously, and there was a burning sensation in his right forearm. He rolled up his sleeve to see a dark red mark from the stun ray emblazoned on his arm. It had burned him when he’d fired it, and the skin was already beginning to bubble up in a way that did odd things to his stomach. Something wet was trickling into his eye. Sweat? He reached up above his head to turn on the airconditioning, and his hand brushed the side of his forehead, coming away darkened with blood. Great, just what he needed, a head wound. At least he wasn’t dizzy yet. He probed the injury carefully, and found a few shards of glass in the wound. He blinked as he realized that two of the windows had been impacted in the attack. A few inches lower, and the flying glass probably would have struck his eye.

Obviously he should do something about the burn and the scalp wound ASAP.

It takes near millennia to reach a gas station, and by that time, he’s feeling lightheaded. A sizable goose-egg bump is rising on his head, too, so apparently now he has two head wounds, which is just… perfect.

The cashier looks at him askance as he opens the front door. He knows how he looks. Blood stands in a trail from his wound down his neck, dark and crusty against his face. He’s glad that the bleeding has stopped by now.

 “Do you have any first aid equipment?” he manages. The kid nods, grabs some stuff from one of the racks, and drops it on the counter as Billy fishes for his wallet.

“How’d you get all banged up?” the kid asks as Billy thrusts some crumpled bills toward him.

Billy ignores him, instead grabbing a couple of bottled waters from the shelf as well and adding them to the pile. The kid’s staring at him mulishly. “Just ring the stuff up, please,” he says wearily, holding a can of Coke to his aching head.

He gets back on the road after refilling the gas tank and doing his best to clean up his scalp wound a little. He makes it over the mountains, and has passed the last of the foothills when his head has begun to pound fiercely, and the sand that stretches to the horizon begins to waver gently. He’s reached the desert, and has no idea where he intends to go. He still has the better part of a gas tank left. The wavering of the sand nauseates him. The sun sinks slowly, glaring red across the sand.

Before he knows it, he’s drifted onto the soft, sandy shoulder, and he has to pull the car back onto the road. How much time has gone past? Both his waters and the Coke are long gone, and his tongue is dry, parched. The moon is full, rising huge in the night sky, its light silvering the sands. His vision begins to blur again, and he has to pull over before he makes the situation worse. He barely manages to park before his body shuts down, forcing him into a deep, deathlike sleep.

 

NIGHT VALE: CARLOS’ LAB

Cecil stays in the chair for a long time, doing his best to awaken his third eye and use it to find Carlos. His Carlos, who might not be his much longer.

All he gets out of the experience is a headache, and a rising sense of well… _anger_. It’s climbing his sides, filling him. Carlos doesn’t deserve this.

He can’t let the secret police tear Carlos away from _everything_ \- from his life- like this.

He gets up, unfolding his body painfully from the chair, and heads in the direction of the Night Vale Community Radio studio. Cecil is not going to skip out on work, despite the awful event which has occurred. Getting himself arrested for skipping work will not do anything at all to improve Carlos’ situation.

Cecil knows who he needs to talk to. The car park isn't too far from the radio station: a quick stopover in that direction will still allow him to arrive at the radio station on time. 

There are five angels clustered in Old Woman Josie's stubble filled front yard. That's not unusual. However, two of them are glowing much brighter than usual, one is humming very loudly, and they are all hovering about five feet above the stubbly lawn.

Something big must be about to happen. At least,  big in angel terms.

Cecil ducks under the angels, who are hovering just high enough to make a statement,  but not high enough to permit passersby to walk without ducking or hunching over. He puts a hand on the acid green door, which creaks open.

"Come in, Cecil, " Old Woman Josie says. She’s sitting in a dumpy old armchair, knitting. Two of the angels are hovering (literally) over her shoulders, watching the stitches move back and forth, from needle to needle. One of the angels offers Cecil tea, and when he waves them away, the angel drinks the tea themself.

“Carlos is gone,” Cecil says.

She nods gravely. “Yes, Erika told me,” she says.

“Does Erika say anything else?”

“It says to be careful. Wait. Help will come.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes. You should do traffic first on the show today.”

Cecil’s somewhat annoyed by that, because he likes dictating the order of features, but he nods in agreement.

“I’ll see you later, Cecil,” says Old Woman Josie.

He waves half-heartedly to her, and sighs as he slips behind the wheel. That one sigh gives him a flash of insight.

He smiles, widely. In the past, he may have felt trapped behind all the sound systems and microphones, standing like a hedge between him and the outside world, but today, Cecil considers the possibilities that his wonderful, wonderful job offers, and his smile turns up, just a  bit bigger than before.

On the air, the worst they can do is censor the program.

 

He’s feeling so good about the whole thing that he almost resists asking Dana for coffee, but then reconsiders, and asks for the coffee anyway. He didn’t get that much sleep, and it wouldn’t do to fall asleep while on the air. As Dana sets the coffee down on his desk, she puts a hand on his shoulder, glancing at the dark circles below his eyes. “You don’t look so good,” she notes. “Did Carlos find out what made those bird-things attack Night Vale? Did he keep you up late, explaining it all?”

She takes his reflexive smile as confirmation, and continues, “I told you he’d be okay. He always is.”

Cecil can’t stand to keep quiet any longer. If he does, he knows he’ll start crying on the air, which has never happened before and might provoke alarming reactions from his mic. He stands up suddenly.

“Cecil, we’re about to go on the air,” another intern says from outside the booth. “Are you ready?”

“Carlos is missing,” Cecil whispers to Dana.

“When you mean missing, you mean-”

“Yes. I still have his note in my pocket,” Cecil says, pulling the wilted petals from inside his trouser pocket.

“Oh, Cecil…”

He touches one of the petals, pointing to the spatter of crimson that stands starkly out against the pale purple surface. “There’s blood on it,”  he says. “What if he’s hurt? Dana, what if he’s still bleeding? He could-”

“Cecil,” she says. “You’re planning to tell everyone about it on the air, right?”

He sighs. Dana always did seem to have some sort of latent telepathy.

“Of course,” he says. “Abstractly, of course.”

“Just please, Cecil, be careful,” she says.

For answer, he switches on his mic.

Billy fumbles for the radio controls. Some music might focus him, keep him from drifting off the road.

It’s early, and he’s still tired- his sleep was deep, though unsatifying. The first, second and third stations are all dead air. The fourth station sounds like an enormous orchestra composed of only piccolos, tuning. It only makes his head hurt worse, so he passes. Then there’s a voice, deep, reassuring, but with a melancholy lilt.

“Four petals. Four petals on a white table. Four grasping fingers,” the announcer intones. “Welcome to Night Vale.

A white Ford is approaching from the desert today. There’s a man, with tired eyes, at the wheel. Two lab coats are folded up inside his duffel bag. One white, one red. One holds who he was, the other, who he is. It is up to him to decide which is which.”

 


	4. cast your soul to the sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So this update is a day late: for that I apologise. I had a field trip that took up a good deal of my time and so this update was late in coming to you. I hope you enjoy it anyway!  
> Billy meets Steve Carlsburg, and dislikes him-that guy's such a jerk. He meets Cecil too.  
> Also, a section from Carlos's perspective.

NIGHT VALE: A WHITE FORD

Billy keeps his eyes open for a convenience store as he drives into the outskirts of Night Vale. After that creepy message, which was obviously about him, he’d considered bypassing the town and taking the exit to Desert Bluffs. But then the improvised bandage he’d applied the previous day has loosened, and refuses to adhere any longer. Annoyed by the way it kept slipping down over his eyes, Billy had untied the back of the gauze, tugging it from the coagulated mess of blood that has covered his wounds.  He must have torn through the scabbed blood, for a trail of cool wetness had begun to inch its way down his face.

He really hopes that the only reason someone had decided to feature him on the news was was a boring day. But why had they known about the lab coats? Maybe there was a Hero with X-ray powers who assisted the reporters. At this point, with his head bleeding again, he tells himself he doesn’t really care.

 But, again, what kind of radio program featured such a weird opening sequence? It was like horror poetry or something. Was that even a genre? Maybe they’re just severely underfunded. Or something.

As he drives through the downtown part of Greater Night Vale, Billy sees a Ralph’s at the corner, and pulls into a parking space near a vacant lot. He considers parking on the vacant lot, until he sees hooded figures huddling in what looks like a deep crater. A compulsion deep inside him tells him that it’s probably not a good idea to park too near them. He straps on his stun ray, covering it securely with the sleeve of his hoodie. It’s only a precaution. Despite the attention it might attract, he decides to bring in the duffel.

It’s literally all he has.

 

The Ralph’s is almost vacant of shoppers, which Billy chalks up to the earliness of the hour. It’s barely eight am: most people are probably already at work or on their way to it. The cashier smiles at him as he enters, and takes the blood dripping down his face in stride. (When he looks back, he will recognize what a bad sign that was, but in the moment, Billy’s just glad she’s not giving him shocked looks and reaching for the panic button already.)

“Sorry, sir, but you’re gonna have to check your duffel with me,” she says. He begins to protest, but she holds up a ringed hand.

 “Store rules, not mine. If we let everyone carry in their bags, we’d have a lot more eldritch disasters, biohazards, and shoplifting.”

Billy begins smiling awkwardly at what he assumes was her idea of a joke, but she keeps on her it’s-way-too-early-for-this-sh*t sort of face. He checks his bag, and heads to the pharmacy section of the Ralph’s. As he stoops down to look for bandages on the shelf, he feels a tap on his shoulder.

A tall man, with floppy hair that reminds him slightly of Captain Hammer stands behind him, close enough to make him feel uncomfortable, towering over him. Billy stands quickly, unfolding from his crouched position, but even then, the guy’s a good head taller than him. Billy feels the reassuring pressure of his stun ray against his arm. If things turn bad, it won’t matter how tall the guy is.

“You need to leave this town, now,” the guy says. Billy scrambles for words.

“Look… I don’t know what you’ve heard about me… but…”

“Oh, I know enough,” the man says. He leans closer.

“Wh-what-” He really doesn’t need this stammer right now, he really doesn’t.

“Cecil talked about you. On his show, just a few minutes ago. You must have heard him.”

“Well, I guess it’s a fluke or something, weird thing, fate and all…that…”

“Cecil never just talks about anyone like that, especially drifters who’re just passing through,” the man says. “You are a drifter, right? You don’t plan on staying?”

“I don’t think so…” He hadn’t been thinking of staying, but now he sort of wanted too, just because this creep was warning him against it.

“Look, I’m only warning you because when you catch Cecil’s attention, nothing good happens.”

“How would you know- you his friend, or something?” Billy blurts. He presses a hand to his already aching head, wishing he had a paper towel to stem the bleeding or something.

“Hell no. And I’m warning you- because his voice, his radio station- it’s dangerous-” He puts a hand on Billy’s shoulder, and his words blur into nonsense as Billy blocks it out. He feels the rack behind him press into his back, and the arm on his shoulder is just humming with patronizing condescension. He can’t deal with this trapped feeling that’s building inside him. Billy shoves the man off of him with a shudder that sets his bruises aching again.

“Hey, this is important- I’m talking to you! You need my help-”

“I don’t care,” Billy growls at the man. “I’m just looking for bandages, you jerk. You don’t give a crap about me, or you would have noticed that my scalp is _bleeding_ right now. Unless you want to give me real, actual help, like with bandages or antiseptic or something, that would be great!”

He turns back to the shelf.

Then he hears applause, and a familiar, purring voice. “Well said, well said. Steve Carlsburg, could you refrain from acting like a jerk for two minutes? No, Steve Carlsburg, because you aren’t acting like a jerk, you _are_ a jerk.”

Billy jerks his head up. There’s a man standing in the aisle, hand on his hips like a Hero, but he’s wearing a purple buttondown, a grey vest, and business slacks. He runs his hands through his hair as Steve Carlsburg stalks past him, to the door.

 “STEVE CARLSBURG,” he growls.

“You’re Cecil Baldwin,” Billy says. “You’re the guy from the radio.”

“Yes, that’s me,” says Cecil, smiling in a strained fashion. "You are..."

"Billy..." 

Cecil's waiting for a surname, but Billy doesn't feel like telling him.

"Nobody, I'm nobody."

He meant it in every sense of the word.

“All right, Billy Nobody. Can we go over to the radio station? I need to ask you a few questions.”

Cecil’s face is transparent- he wants something out of Billy. Just like this Steve Carlburg character had.

“You want me to be honest?” Billy says, and Cecil nods. “I think I just wandered into some town rivalry between you and the asshat that just went outside. I don’t want to be your pawn, and I don’t really want to be on your show. Sorry.”

“You don’t need to be on the show,” Cecil laughs. “Oh, here are the bandages.” He tosses a box to Billy. “Enjoy.”

Billy moves to the cash register. Annoyingly, Cecil follows him, standing right beside the door, so even after he’s bought the bandages and antiseptic, he has to pass the other man to leave.

“Why are you interested in me? Why am I so special?”

“Because you’re new. You’re not scared, not yet, and I need not-scared right now. No one else (but Dana) can help me right now.”

Billy laughs dryly. “Sell me on it. Make me care about whatever it is you care about. Believe me, it’s harder than it sounds.”

“Will you help me if I make you care?” Cecil asks, as Billy opens his car door to sit down on the seat and start cleaning up his wound.

“Of course, but I’ll have to care. A lot.” He winces as the antiseptic swab hits a tender area. Cecil’s hands are suddenly over his. Does everyone in this town have issues with personal space? He has to restrain himself before he breaks away- he doesn’t want to hurt himself more.

“Stop touching me,” he says instead.

“If I clean your wound and dress it, will you listen?”

“Yeah,” Billy grunts. He tries to get up, but his legs won’t hold him. He sits down, hard.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing!”

Cecil’s eyes narrow. “When did you last eat?”

Billy stares angrily at his own hands. “Couple of days ago. I don’t know.” 

“We’ll go to my house. This car is not a good place to dress a wound,” says Cecil. “You have to eat, you can’t even stand on your own.”

Billy tries to stand up again. “I don’t need help.”

 Cecil slips a hand under his shoulders, grabbing his duffel bag with the other hand.

“Obviously, you do.” He looks down at the jury-rigged taped wires protruding from the steering wheel and adds, “We’ll take my car.”

 

The ride to Cecil’s apartment is a tense one. Billy is relieved when they pull up at an apartment building. Cecil slips his arm under Billy’s shoulders, shouldering his duffel again. The man was deceptively strong for his size.

Cecil warms up a bowl of soup in the microwave, and places it before Billy. He doesn’t care that it’s a bright acid green- it smells wonderful. Billy has to work to keep from guzzling the savory broth. To Billy’s surprise, Cecil doesn’t so much as cock an eyebrow at the stun ray when he unstraps it and places it in the duffel. As if in response, Cecil extracts a pistol from the back of his pants, placing it on the counter. Billy gives a quick smile. Looks like they’ve both got guns.

While Billy eats, Cecil washes out the wounds on his head and on his arm with tapwater, and then Cecil takes the antiseptic in hand. His hands are surprisingly gentle. With a shock, Billy realizes that Cecil’s the first person to initiate friendly physical contact since…well… Penny. Cecil works in silence for a while before beginning to speak.

“I need your help in breaking someone out of a secure township facility.”

 

AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION WHICH EVERYONE KNOWS IS THE ABANDONED MINE SHAFT

Carlos starts awake in a blank white room. A faint buzzing permeates the walls, just loud enough to be heard, but at a quiet pitch that grates against his tense nerves. A clean bandage has been wrapped around his palm, protecting the wound from when he fell on the glass after they’d entered his lab. The lab had been dark. He’d barely seen them, just felt one of them try to tackle him from behind as he measured out chemical tinctures, but he’d known who it was at once, and why they were interested in him. He’d crushed the remnants of the test-tube against his palm as a distraction, and while they’d been trying to get him up, he’d pulled four petals from Cecil’s note, still in the lapel of his lab coat. Carlos had managed to slap them onto the table as he’d pretended to lose his footing and grabbed onto the table to steady himself.

He’d held onto Cecil’s note as they pressed a wet rag over his nose and mouth, dropping it into a pocket to hide it from them. Now, he’s still lying on the floor where they must have left him, his head aching from the chloroform they used to knock him out, and he drops a hand down, groping for the pocket, for Cecil’s note. There’s no pocket. He’s not wearing his lab coat- he’s wearing only a thin, papery hospital gown, white as the walls. They even took his glasses. This fact worries him- he’s not sure of what it means.

With some difficulty, he pulls himself to his feet, and begins to pace the length of the curious room. The floor feels strangely porous to his bare feet, and he stoops down to run a hand over the surface. It’s grainy, giving slightly when he applies pressure, like a sand-dollar, or polished coral. A faint luminescence hangs about it, and Carlos decides to attempt a few tests on it.

He starts off by scraping it lightly with a finger, carving a chalky white trail in the matter, which stands out starkly against the otherwise featureless floor. (He’s careful to use his good hand, keeping the other cradled to his chest). As he watches, the scratch mends itself, starting at where he’d sunk in his nail and knitting itself closed, like a zipper. Carlos uses his nails to scrape gouges of increasing size on each wall and on the floor. These scratches react the same way, closing up a few seconds after Carlos carves them, the rapidity depending on the width of the gouges. All that’s left behind is some luminescent powder on his knuckles.

Carlos puts a hand to the smooth cool wall, trailing his fingers along it as he walks, feeling for a crack, a seam, or a join that could denote a door. He rounds the room three times, and feels nothing but smooth wall. In frustration, Carlos kicks at the wall. Faint cracks appear, but he barely notices them. The buzzing noise has begun to grow louder and higher in pitch, until Carlos feels as if bees are climbing one by one into his ears. He kicks the wall again, stupidly, in an attempt to make the buzzing stop. The noise increases tenfold, pushing into his brain, blocking his attempts at lucid thought. His ears ache horribly, and he imagines Cecil there, beside him, maybe drafting a station editorial, or reading, or just sitting there, with him, just being. It’s a vain attempt to take his mind from the pain, and one that doesn’t help at all.

When he summons Cecil’s image to his mind, there’s something inside, waiting for him. Hard, sharp like a scalpel, carving into his head, into his mental image of Cecil. It’s riffling through his thoughts, his memories of Cecil, pausing to mock his memory of his first date with Cecil, sneering at the awkward kiss he’d planted on Cecil’s cheek. He’s naked before it, more vulnerable then he feels in the thin hospital gown. It dives deeper into his most important memories: the day he first held his little sister, the day he graduated college, the day he- it’s peering into-

_No. Stop. That’s private._

He sees the lights above the Arby’s floating above, and Cecil’s walking up to his car, a mixture of relief and joy marking his features…

There’s a blanket spread out in the backseat, but Carlos is sitting on the hood of his car. The residual heat, still accumulated from the day, seeps through his clothes, warming him against the desert chill…

Cecil is looking into his eyes… he’s right there, and the lights above the Arby’s are reflected in his glasses… Carlos could kiss him now, but instead, he reaches out and…

 _Pathetic…_ the something says inside his head. _Why didn’t you just play him? What a little fool, believing that you could love him? So easy to snap his neck- you could have just pushed him off the car, and that would have been the end-_

Somehow, Carlos pulls himself out of his own head, as he opens his injured hand with a jolt of pain. Then he notices something purple stuck to the dressing. Half of Cecil’s precious note has stuck to the bandage, gummed down with blood and bandage adhesive. Carlos squeezes his injured hand, the pain preventing the cold surgical thing from returning to his brain. The buzzing sound continues, still goading him. He closes his eyes. Immediately, the thing’s back, scavenging among his thoughts like some psychic buzzard.

He gasps, opening his eyes. The room is now no longer radiating white light. Instead, the walls have turned a bilious green color, and seem to be somewhat closer than they were before. He puts a hand against the wall, to ground himself. His feet refuse to hold him steady. The sound is intense, vibrating through him like he’s a cymbal or a drum. The wall shifts slightly under his fingers. He stumbles back, staring, as the walls hem him in tighter. The space is half its prevous size- now the cube is about five feet square.  The breath hisses faster and faster through Carlos’s mouth, but he can’t make it stay in his lungs. He huddles in the middle of the room, trying to force the breath to stay inside his body. When his eyelids fluttered closed, he saw hard wood above his head, felt the bleeding splinters in his hands, as he shoved helplessly at the lid. But when he opened his eyes, he saw the close green room instead.

 He’d been five, too young to realize that hiding in his abulita’s old blanket chest was a bad idea, until the latch had caught, and he’d been trapped, screaming until his voice gave out. It had been his weak pounding on the lid that had alerted his cousin to his presence. The thing inside his brain had found this memory, somehow, somewhere. When he forces his eyes open again, the walls are almost touching him. The space contracts, and though he can’t feel the walls caving in on him, he still feels as if they are.

 In a fit of impotent rage, Carlos thumps a fist against one of the walls that hem him in.  Something silver and sharp shoots out of the wall, and at first he thinks it’s a stream of water, until it pricks against his arm. He looks at it more closely. It’s a long thin needle, protruding from the wall, and before he can break it or shove it away, it’s stabbing deeply into his arm. A numbness sweeps over him, and he can’t keep himself upright any longer. His eyes slam shut without his volition, and he feels the scalpel-like thing shoving, tearing at his memories again. It’s pawing through his memories with Cecil, and he can’t even keep his eyes open now. The pain is worse now, a pain that he knows won’t be cured by medicine- it’s inside his head. He feels the slipping as the drug enters into his blood stream.

“Cecil,” he mutters, his voice thin and papery in his dry throat. “Cecil, I will hold on. I know you’ll come. Cecil…” He wants to say more, but the thing in his head won’t let him speak. He’s bare before it, as it scrapes its way through his head. He tries to block it, but it tears through any mental boundary he puts up within seconds.

“Cecil, please.”

Then the drug freezes his lips, his hands, his body, and closes his eyelids, drawing them like shutters. He can only lie there, immobilized, while the sharp cruel thing ravages the inside of his mind.

_“Cecil, please.”_

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time...  
> Cecil works at convincing Billy to help him in saving Carlos. Billy has to make a choice.


	5. hopes and fears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, chapter update is late again... so I've made a decision. I'm moving chapter updates to Saturdays, because there's a thing called midterms which are hanging over my head right now, and will be for the next two weeks. Maybe then I'll be able to keep on schedule!
> 
> In this chapter, Carlos gets some hope, while Cecil does his utmost to get Billy to care about Carlos and his mission to rescue him.

 

AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION WHICH EVERYONE KNOWS IS THE ABANDONED MINE SHAFT

Carlos hasn’t slept.  He hasn’t been able to approach anything near rest, not with the loud humming that seems to surround the little room. Thankfully, the sedative had worn off, and his mind was blessedly, blessedly free of the tearing sharp thing. His eye-sockets hurt from incessant dark green light, and a migraine is drilling away behind his left eyebrow. He has no way of knowing how long it’s been since he came here. He knows by the pull of hunger in his stomach that it’s been at least a day. Though he knows he’ll never go to sleep with the eternal sound buzzing in his ears, he tries anyway, curling into a tight ball, his hands tight over his ears. He’s actually managed to drift into a doze when the sound increases in volume, sending him upright within a second. He lays back down to sink back into the half-sleep he’d previously attained.

A light touch on his bare arm wakes him. He jolts fully awake, staring at the person who’s now occupying his tiny cell.

“Cecil!” he says unbelievingly. “How did you-but you…”

Hope wells, like a blossoming flower, in his heart.

“Sh!” Cecil warns, pressing a finger warningly to his own lips, but Carlos can’t stop stuttering.

“But they, they… how did you find me…”

Soft lips against his own stop the flow of words, and he relaxes into Cecil’s kiss. Cecil’s tattooed hand at the nape of his neck, playing with his hair. Cecil’s breath, smelling faintly of lemon and pear.

“Talk later, escape now,” Cecil hisses, breaking the kiss. “Can you stand? We need to get out of here, like, now…Dana and some others are waiting outside, to cover us, so we’ll have to run.”

Carlos manages to get to his feet, clutching onto the wall for support. His vision wavers in the darkened green light of the room, and he nearly falls into Cecil as the floor tilts toward him. He gains his footing when Cecil grabs his shoulder, steadying him. He slips his hand into Carlos’ bad one, and Carlos drops Cecil’s note. He leaves it… he’s got Cecil now.

Cecil taps three times on the wall, which splits and slides outward, like a subway door. Leaning on Cecil, Carlos stumbles out of the horrible cell, and into the yellow darkness of the corridor beyond. A red exit sign glows at the end of the hall.

 They make it halfway down the hall when Carlos notices a floor-length mirror on the wall. He looks at it in passing, then stares, unsure of what he’s seeing. Though he’s leaning on Cecil, he sees only his own reflection in the mirror.

“Cecil, what’s going on?”

“Oh, it’s… like a cold… lack of reflections, it’s a pandemic…” Cecil says rapidly, twitching his hair away from his eyes, a motion that is completely Cecil. “So let’s get you out of here, ok?” He reaches for Carlos’ hand.

Carlos freezes. There’s something wrong with Cecil’s face. The lips with their familiar  off-center smirk are Cecil’s, the violet eyes are Cecil’s… but there’s something missing.

Something important.

His forehead bears only smooth, unmarked skin, lacking even a seam.

This Cecil has no third eye.

“You’re not Cecil,” Carlos says swiftly, backing up, putting space between himself and the apparition before him.

“No, I’m not.”

The thing which is not Cecil moves toward Carlos, backing him into the wall. As it raises its hands to grasp Carlo’s arms, the nails grow long, pointed, and curved, and dig deeply into Carlos, so deeply that he lets out a panicked gasp. He closes his eyes, and the pressure of the thing’s hands departs.

When he opens his eyes, he’s standing with his back against the wall of the tiny green cell. There is no door, no way out. He’s alone.

He never left the cell.

Carlos slides to the floor, pressing his cheek against the cool wall. He’d heard that seclusion could create hallucinations. He just hadn’t expected them to be… so vivid.

He remembers Cecil’s hands around his shoulders, the careful way he’d helped him through the hall. The kiss.

Carlos pulls his knees to his chin. The cell seems closer than ever. The blossom of hope that had grown at Cecil’s appearance withers, still in the bud. He opens his hands, as if searching for proof that Cecil had touched him.

Cecil’s flower is still in his hand, undisturbed, its wilted petals still attached.

It’s then that Carlos lets himself cry.

CECIL’S APARTMENT

Billy blinks. “I don’t think- wait, what is it you want me to do?”

Cecil clears his throat-it’s more of a nervous tic than anything else, he knows he doesn’t need it, but what he does need is some extra time to formulate an answer. He opens his third eye momentarily, knowing that Billy can’t see it, as Billy is busying his hands with cleaning his small ray gun, and makes sure to block the signals from the many bugs that fill his house. It’s a risk, but he can’t dress Billy’s wounds in the car, either.

“Someone very important to me has been taken for re-education by the sheriff’s secret police. I need you to help me get him back.”

Billy begins to shake his head, and Cecil hums impatiently. “You can’t move your head when I’m cleaning out wounds! I almost hurt you!”

Actually, he had barely touched the antiseptic pad to Billy’s head. Maybe the ploy would give him more time to get together a better argument.

“Ah, don’t worry about it,” Billy said. “I’ve had worse.”

Cecil notices dark bruising on Billy’s shoulder and arm, where his t-shirt doesn’t cover, and a deep scrape on the back of his neck, skirting the collar of the garment. He thinks of asking Billy how he got so banged up, but then he remembers the hot-wired car, and decides that will not be a successful line of questioning. He wants Billy to trust him, not to alienate him further.

Instead, he decides on a slightly safer topic of conversation. His reporter side is begging Cecil to interview Billy, and he gives in for the moment.

“Do you have secret police where you live?”

Billy begins to shake his head again, but then thinks better of it. “No… I thought that sort of thing was…well... against the law.”

“Not here. The secret police monitor everything, and report it to the town council, who of course do not have secret night ceremonies where they don soft-meats crowns as set forth in the town charter as of the eighteenth century, because that would be ridiculous. They are the ones who determine whether someone is worthy of re-education.”

Cecil leans forward slightly, trying to gauge Billy’s reaction to the news. He expects a certain amount of disbelief, but Billy has straightened up at the mention of ‘secret night ceremonies,’ and is listening intently.

“Do you have anyone in your town who serves the same function?” Cecil asks, hoping to build further on his story, without leaving Billy out of the conversation.

“We have superheroes in my town, and they’re a bunch of asses.” He pauses, noticing Cecil’s quizzical look. “Basically, they’re people with powers, who like to beat up criminals instead of just calling the police.”

Billy shifts his right shoulder, almost unconsciously, as if remembering old wounds. Cecil thinks of the hunted look that Billy’d had when Steve Carlsburg cornered him in the Ralph’s, his unwillingness to trust anyone, the lack of food, the unexplained injuries. Billy had probably ended up on the wrong side of these “superheroes,” somehow, and had needed to leave in a hurry, judging by his single duffel bag. He feels a burst of empathy for the man, who seems more alone than Cecil’s ever felt. Sure, he’d had his fair share of re-education, before he’d met Carlos, due to his utter inability to keep from gossiping loudly over the radio, but he had Night Vale, even then. Billy didn’t seem to have anyone to rely on.

Not only does he seem completely unattached, he doesn’t check his phone every two seconds, like Cecil keeps doing in spite of himself, which would indicate that not only does Billy lack family and a significant other, but friends as well, which could indicate that either he suffers from terrible shyness. Alternatively, these facts could mean that he lacks any capacity for empathy, and so doesn’t bother to craft friendships. That could be a problem if he needs to get Billy to care about Carlos.

Billy has paused in eating his soup, and now he looks around furtively, his gaze catching on the small black camera mounted in the corner of the room.

“Wait, you said they were monitoring everything. Are we in any danger?”

“No,” Cecil says hastily. “There are cameras with audio devices mounted in each room, and that mirror is also a camera, but I’ve managed to interrupt the signal for a short time- we can speak freely.”

“All right,” Billy says slowly. “I think I may be starting to believe you. The camera thing gives some credence to it all, at least.”

Cecil hardly dares to hope that his attempt to win Billy over is working. He focuses on thoroughly sponging out the wound, removing some fragments of glass which have lodged in the scabbed cuts.

“Re-education can happen to anyone,” he continues. “You could be walking home and then, next thing you know, you’re alone, and locked up in a room without doors or windows… all because you used a writing utensil, or you dared to stare too long at the dog park, or be a mountain apologist, or… well, there’s a whole list of things that can put you on the list of re-education candidates.”

“That sounds somewhat draconian. Your status quo sounds a lot worse than most other status quos…”

“I don’t think I know what that word means.”

“Status quo?”

“No, draconian.”

“Overbearing, beyond normal measures, cruel and unusual?” Billy attempts.

“Oh, that part’s not draconian. Not yet, anyway. You don’t get locked up unless they’ve noticed certain- mental patterns- that they need to correct. Like you’re voting more than once for an incorrect candidate, or speaking out about mountains repeatedly. So they… re-educate you…so you don’t think that way anymore…they break you, and sometimes they put you back together wrong… so you come back missing memories, missing parts of your personality…”

He’s trying to wrap a clean bandage around Billy’s head, and doing a bad job, because his hands won’t stop trembling.

“Cecil, your hands are shaking…”

“I’m fine,” Cecil grits out. He ties the bandage as best as he can, and paces about the room, full of nervous energy.

 “I need to make you see. How can I make you see!”

Billy peers up from his soup, looking alarmed at Cecil’s overactive movements as he leaps onto the sofa, grabbing a framed photograph  and their  photo album from a shelf, and drops down onto the ground. Cecil plops the objects down in front of him, moves to open the photo album, thinks better of it.

“Nah,” he says, disconsolately. Looking at pictures of people he’s never met? Why did he think that might work on Billy, when Cecil knew for sure that it wouldn’t work on him? He slips a hand inside his jacket pocket, bunching up the lining between his nails as he tries to think. His hand encounters a few cool petals, and he pulls them out.

Carlos’ note. Of course. He may have to explain it, but it will certainly work better than the photo album.

 

Billy has gone back to his soup, which is actually pretty good despite the slightly musty taste (like dust) that hangs around the aftertaste. Cecil slams a thick book down on the table again without warning, and Billy jumps, sending a dirty look Cecil’s way. Either Cecil doesn’t see it or he doesn’t care, but the other man ignores the look. Despite himself, Billy stares as Cecil shakes a few wilted flower petals from the inside of his jacket’s lining, depositing them gently on top of the heavy book. Something that looks distinctly brownish and flaky speckles one of them. He points to the flower petals.

“What’re those?”

“Carlos’ note. See, writing implements are forbidden here, so we’ve had to come up with other ways to leave our messages. Flower language is one of the official writing languages of Night Vale: you can leave different meanings based on flower type, how many petals you pulled off, or just by petals alone.”

“Ok, so that fact that writing utensils are banned is pretty weird, but the flower thing is a cool idea. Go on.”

“Well, the other night I gave Carlos a note: it was a purple echinacea… that’s what the petals are from. He must have pulled them from the flower before they took him.”

Cecil shifts uncomfortably, and is he… blushing?

“What does it mean? The flower, that is?”

“It means that I think he has strength, power… and it also expresses unconditional love for him.”

Oh. _Oh._ He’d been assuming that Carlos was nothing more than a close friend, up until this point, anyway. He took a closer look at the portrait which Cecil had set down on the table: the way they were looking at each other, and the way Carlos was cradling Cecil’s hands in his own…  How blind had he been, to miss that Carlos and Cecil were together? It seems so obvious now: Cecil’s desperation, his nervousness…

He feels a twinge of empathy for Cecil, who is still standing over him, ready to snatch the petals away, should Billy try to touch them. The brown flakes look less and less like dirt to Billy, and more and more like blood. And Cecil had just told him the contents of a love letter… how bad was this situation, anyway?

“I fell in love with him instantly. He’s a scientist. He always remembered the pizza, but he had the hardest time remembering about hugs… He believes in mountains, can you imagine?”

Cecil utters a melancholy laugh, his hand shoots to the withered purple rose that’s fixed to his button, toying with it, and Billy realizes that it must be another love letter: this one’s probably from Carlos to Cecil. Despite himself, he longs to ask what it means, but keeps himself quiet… he can guess at the meaning easily enough. It’s more than just a twinge of empathy he’s feeling now- it’s stronger, almost like déjà vu. He remembers red hair and the scent of fabric softener.

“Cecil, I would…” he begins, stops, interrupts himself. “I’ll help in any way I can.”

He’s not ready for the gentle hug that Cecil gives him, featherlight, so as not to disturb his bruises, but a hug, nonetheless. It’s surprisingly nice, and Billy hopes he hasn’t tensed up too much but he actually can’t remember the last time someone gave him a hug. Before he can make up his mind about how he feels about this hug, he’s reaching out and hugging Cecil back. The man’s practically a stranger, but at the moment, Billy doesn’t care. Cecil rubs his shoulder absently, and Billy’s afraid for a moment that he’s going to cry. In the end, it’s Billy who ends the hug, leaning slightly away from Cecil.

“Thank you, Billy,” murmurs Cecil quietly. “I know none of this is easy: it’s all new… I just appreciate your promise to help me in my rescue attempt.”

Then there’s a frantic pounding on the door.

“Cecil! Open up!” A woman’s voice. “Hurry!”

Cecil jumps to undo the multitude of deadbolts and padlocks that secure the door.

“Dana? Dana, what is it?” he asks loudly.

Once Cecil manages to open the last lock, a young woman with a halo of dark brown curls sticks her head through the door.

“Cecil, I certainly hope you’re done with your break, because there’s something big going on at the radio station. It’s Station Management. They keep thrashing against the wall of their office, like they’re going to break through. Except they haven’t yet, which is why I could leave and come ask you to come talk to them”

“You’ve evacuated all non-essential interns?”

“Yes, and your sentient palm tree. It doesn’t deserve to suffer.”

“Good, you’ve done well. I’m almost done here.” He gestures to Billy, who tries hard to make himself one with the table. It doesn’t work. Dana’s eyes light up when she sees him, like he’s a long-lost friend from her distant past.

“Is it that man- the one in the white Ford?”

“I’m trying to convert him.”

“Hi!” Dana says to Billy.

He waves uncertainly. “I’m going to help you find Carlos,” Billy said in a rush, before he could be interrupted again.

Dana only looks at Cecil. “Good job converting him.”

Cecil blushes. “Let’s get to the radio station, before Station Management runs amok.”

 

 They all pile into Cecil’s tiny, ancient car, Cecil at the wheel, Dana taking shotgun, and Billy in the backseat, where he can keep his duffel bag nearby. As Cecil steps on the gas, Billy watches multiple stop signs fly past.

 “Um, Cecil, you missed that stop sign? And that one. And hey, that one too!”

Billy feels the blood draining from his face as Cecil, blatantly ignoring him, speeds past a stopped police car at a stoplight that is glowing a bright, clear, red. Dana smiles in his direction.

“Oh, I forgot, you’re not from here, are you? Cecil has full stop sign immunity this year!”

“That comes with being the voice of Night Vale?” Billy asks. “Perks of the job or something?”

“No, just got five stamps on my Alert Citizen Card last January!” Cecil shouts, narrowly avoiding a tan Corolla. Steve Carlsburg leans out of the driver’s side window as they pass him, shouting something incomprehensible in their direction.

Cecil shouts back, “No one is listening to you, Steve Carlsburg. NO ONE AT ALL!”

Billy gets a glimmer of the same intimidating man he’d glimpsed in the Ralph’s as Cecil speaks. He shudders slightly; he can’t figure out if this version of Cecil is slightly creepy or just more badass than usual.

They pull into the Night Vale Community Radio Station parking lot in record time. A group of frightened interns is clustered on the cactus strewn lawn outside the station, nursing mugs of coffee and (he’s surprised to see) machine guns, which they’re obviously used to handling, judging by the nonchalant manner in which they handle the guns.

Cecil yanks open the car door, striding forth, pistol in hand. Billy blinks, because he’s sure that he didn’t see Cecil take the gun from the table in the kitchen, but he’s quick to follow, adjusting the newly added silicon burn plate between his arm and his stun ray (improvised from a hot plate in Cecil’s kitchen). He doesn’t want a repeat of the nasty burns he got from it last time.

Somehow, Dana manages to get to the station door before both Cecil and Billy. She also manages to get a long knife that actually looks more like a broadsword, seemingly from out of nowhere.

“Hang on a minute,” she says. “Station Management hasn’t left the office, I just evacuated everyone before they could, so I don’t think it’s a good idea to disturb them further.”

“Right,” Cecil says. “I’ll just shout through the door. Billy, don’t fire your gun… without need, ok?”

“Ok,” Billy says, though he’s not sure what “need” will exactly look like.

“We’ll be right behind you if anything goes wrong, Cecil,” Dana says, holding open the door.

 

Cecil, sheathing his pistol in his jacket, enters the station.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time:
> 
> Cecil gives Station Management a talking-to. They really need to stop having these tantrums...


	6. Station Management

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cecil, Billy, and Dana face Station Management. Billy comes to terms with the fact that he is now surrounded by monsters.   
> Cecil is badass.   
> Meanwhile, Carlos has a very creepy encounter with Hallucination!Cecil...

NIGHT VALE COMMUNITY RADIO STATION

As Cecil strides deeper into the lobby, Billy hesitates on the threshold of the station, but Dana ushers him through the doors.

“Go on! Just… watch your step.”

He hurried in, being careful to avoid the long black cables which stretch across the floor. The door opens onto a long, dark hallway. Identical doors stare down at him, a number at the top their only distinguishing feature. At the end of the hall is an open lobby area. On the reception desk, some sad-looking rubber plants droop. A garishly bright orange rug that looks like someone stole it from the 70’s covers the floor. The same strange black cords crisscross it as well.

 Cecil stands in the center of the garish rug, staring at the frosted doors at the back of the lobby, mumbling a chant of some sort under his breath, his pistol still firmly clenched in his fist. Billy’s about to tap him on the shoulder and ask what all the fuss is about, when a curling long black tendril flails across the frosted glass of the office.

“What was that?” he whispers to Dana, not wanting to disturb Cecil from his chanting.

“Station management,” she says. Despite the tension in her voice, she holds her knife expertly, in a loose position, ready to step in if need be.

The tendril was probably somebody holding a computer cord or another electronic wire of some sort, he tells himself. It was silly to get worried about something like that. Somehow, he can’t seem to shake the sense of overwhelming dread that the tendril has inspired.

Billy squints, trying to peer through the glass, which is pretty much useless as the glass is too opaque to make out any features of the office that certainly lies beyond. He steps closer, only intending to try and see through the door. Then he notices the glass isn’t frosted, after all. Tiny scratches, the size of paper cuts, cover the surface of the glass, cross-hatching each other to form a frosted appearance. Whatever made those cuts could not possibly be human. They almost reminded him of tiny claws, or at least the mark that tiny claws would make on glass. He steps even closer, stretching out his fist to tap on the door.

“Billy?” Cecil breaks from his chanting. “What are you doing?”

Billy turns around to look at him: Cecil’s frowning at him in confusion.

“Stop!” Dana warns. He turns back to face the doors, catching a glimpse of movement behind the glass. Then he’s leaping backwards as not one, but five flailing tendrils slap the glass wetly. He hears a soft sucking sound, and notices that the undersides of the tendrils are ranked with small suckers, like an octopus’ tentacles.

“How are we supposed to talk to Station Management? Can they even hear us? There’s no way that they’re human!” Billy hisses as Dana tugs him back toward the center of the room, in an attempt to get him away from the double doors. She obviously thinks he’ll try to knock on the door again, which is nonsense: there’s no way he’s even going near those doors if he can help it.

“ _We’re_ not going to say anything at all to them- Cecil’s going to talk to them,” Dana tells him, pointedly ignoring his last and most important question.

“This is insane,” Billy mutters, tugging loose of Dana’s hold. She makes another grab for his arm, but he shakes off her grip. His hands are shaking uncontrollably. For a moment, he considers just turning around, going back down that dark hallway, leaving the two of them to cope with this problem. He hadn’t intended to be roped into dealing with inhuman things… when he’d agreed to help Cecil, he’d thought maybe some hacking, some liberal use of a freeze ray, and a lot of illegal activities would be involved. Crime, he could deal with. He wasn’t sure if he could handle _monsters_. It was perfectly reasonable to be contemplating flight.

He looks up from his hands, and both Dana and Cecil are looking at him. He squirms, uncomfortable with the intensity of their gazes. Dana’s still looking at him shrewdly, as if she expects him to run. But it’s Cecil’s gaze that really unsettles Billy. Cecil’s oddly colored eyes look sad, and his mouth is already stiffening into a resigned, grim little smile, as if he knew that Billy wouldn’t really help him.

“You can go,” Cecil says, his voice carefully bleached of emotion. “I know that you weren’t ready for this. I understand.”

Somehow Billy’s offended, though Cecil is only stating the obvious. At that moment, he decides to stay. Partially, it’s because he doesn’t want Cecil and Dana to see him as a coward (and because he knows he is one, his heart’s quivering like a feather in a high breeze).

But the main reason comes from a gut-wrenching fear that this chance is his last chance to redeem himself, to avoid a metamorphosis into Dr. Horrible. He’s committed such a crime- he knows he’ll never really be free of it. If he can do this one good thing, maybe he can at least help someone, and avoid hurting anyone else. If he leaves now, he’s not sure what will happen to him. Right now, staying to help is the best he can do, as far as selflessness goes. So that’s what he’s going to do.

“Why would I go?” he says, picking his words carefully. “I promised to do whatever I could to help. Not to quibble over semantics, but running away doesn’t sound like “helping” to me.”

To back up his words, he programs his stun ray to the highest level.

Dana nods, approvingly, clapping him on the shoulder. The resigned look leaves Cecil’s eyes, to be replaced by something like hope. Dana tightens her grip on her knife, and Cecil resumes chanting. There’s the sound of things being knocked over inside the office, and sudden squealing noises, like metal on metal. Soft clicking and hisses fill any absences of squealing sound. Slowly, the noises within the office rise to a crescendo.

Then Cecil stops chanting, turning slowly, gingerly, toward the double doors.

“Station Management!” he shouts, his voice deep and commanding. “Station Management, what is the meaning behind this uproar?”

Something slams against one of the interior walls of Station Management’s office, and then a sound akin to flesh being ripped from bone. At least, that’s what Billy thinks it sounds like. He’s never actually heard flesh being ripped from bone, but he imagines that ripping, wetly shredding noise is something like it, and his stomach churns at the thought.

What could possibly be inside that office? Nothing human, surely. Was Cecil hoping to enter that place? He hoped not, though, after all, it was Cecil.

“Station Management!”

This time Billy jumps: Cecil’s entered into deep-voiced, frighteningly commanding badassery, and he wasn’t ready for it at all. He actually can feel the resonance of Cecil’s voice in his own chest, which isn’t normal, but then, what part of this entire day has been? Absently, he wonders what Cecil would sound like if he tried out an evil laugh. Certainly it would put his own laugh to shame, despite the voice coach.

He’s only mildly surprised when Station Management stops with the horrible noises, and spreads some tentacles across the door again. A red envelope whizzes from the void under the double doors, and it hits Billy’s foot. He picks it up with the tips of his fingers, handing it to Cecil, who rips it open with a fingernail, slipping out a yellow sheet of paper from inside the envelope. He can see the words on the paper over Cecil’s shoulder. The ink used on the page is purple, and has bled slightly through the pale paper, like an overly moist felt-tip marker, but somehow the lines of the letters are off. The lettering is crude, large, and to the point.

“Our Voice has been missing. Now you are back. You will not leave again.”

A single tentacle slides from underneath the door, wrapping tightly around Cecil’s ankle. A sudden gasp is the only reaction that Cecil gives, before going very still. Billy raises his gun, ready to shoot the offending appendage. Dana grabs his arm.

“Don’t make it angry. It’ll only end up badly for Cecil.”

Billy forces his arm to relax, lowering his weapon to his side. Cecil works here- surely he’ll be able to reason with the creature.

 

Against Cecil’s ankle, the sucking appendage of Station Management twitches coldly. He can feel it cinching tighter and tighter, till a faint tingling fills his foot. Hopelessness overwhelms him, and with the hopelessness comes fear. He’d been masking it with his greater purpose- get this situation settled and get Carlos- but now the bravado he’s assumed is gone. He may have issued not only his own death warrant, but those of Billy (still so naïvely confident in Cecil) and Dana (who deserves so much better than Cecil).

“Release me,” he commands coldly. “Release me _now_.”

The letter unfolds itself in his hand; the message has changed. “You are ours, and we will not release you. Otherwise, you jeopardize your contract, and will be shut down.”

Station Management. Always with the insufficient explanations. However, in this case he’s pretty sure of what they mean- the tight armlike structure above his ankle makes it plain.

Cecil swallows, before opening his mouth again. “That will not be possible. Carlos has been taken for re-education, and I have to find him. I cannot stay in the studio today, I have to go!”

The appendage only tightens, and he thinks he can feel his bones bending, contracting, about to snap. Panic rises in his throat like bile, and he strains against Station Management’s grip. Then he realizes there’s a purpose to the crushing grip-he can feel Station Management tugging him toward the doors. His feet slide out from under him, but somehow he manages to keep his gun.

Dana drops her knife and grabs his shoulders, but she gets dragged along too. Before she can lose her footing as well, Billy grabs onto the desk with one hand and Dana’s backpack with the other, but Cecil can see him straining, his arms trembling- he won’t be able to hold on indefinitely. A clicking, exasperated noise comes from under the door- Station Management is not amused. It begins to clench even tighter around his leg.

Cecil wonders why it hasn’t absorbed him yet.

“Let go of me,” Cecil demands of Dana. “You’re not being absorbed along with me.”

She glares at him. “No, you idiot.”

Despite her attempts to keep a tight hold on his shoulders, he shakes her off.

Then the doors begin to open, like a pair of jaws waiting to swallow him. Before he can think too hard about it, he grips his gun in both hands, squeezing it tightly as he rolls the trigger. The pressure on his foot decreases suddenly as Station Management abruptly turns him loose with a hiss.

Black blood spurts all over the carpet as Station Management withdraws their wounded appendage, snaking it back under the door. Cecil almost gives a sigh of relief, but before he can get up from the ground, more tentacles shoot toward him in a frenzied tangle. He rolls to the side, and the tentacles bury themselves in the carpet. As Cecil leaps to his feet, he belatedly realizes that they’re not tentacles at all, but strangely flexible arms, with claws protruding from their tips, claws that are easily as long as his forearm.

His only hope is to reason with Management- otherwise they’re all dead. His gun and Dana’s knife won’t do much to hold off these arms for long.

The arms pull themselves free of the carpet, and dart toward his chest.

Cecil drops the gun and closes his eyes, concentrating hard.  Pulling one word up from the depths of his chest, he uses the full power of his Voice.

  ** _“Stop.”_**

The word resonates through the room, as if he’s mic’d and on the air. He stands, waiting for the claws to tear their way through skin, muscle, and ribs, to stop his heart. But they never come.

Through his shut eye-lids, he can see a blinding glow radiating throughout the room. But through his third eye, which has finally opened, he can feel a pulsing heat, and see the purple light that fills the room. The claws have paused a foot away from his chest, and are glowing in the purple light.

 ** _“You will stop this senseless assault,”_** he says, almost before he’s decided to speak. The words are rolling up through him, like waves. Why is he doing this? He’s risking everyone’s lives by commanding Station Management. But somehow, he can’t stop. He thinks that maybe he’s done this before- it’s so easy, so natural.   ** _“You will let us go, and you will not punish the interns for defying you. The broadcast is cancelled for today. This is not a problem. There are no problems. You will go to sleep. You will not wake until tomorrow, and you will forget today. Today is only an illusion, a dream, a nightmare. Tomorrow is real. Today was only a hallucination.”_**

At first, Cecil sees no difference. The long flexible arms continue to float in front of his face, bobbing gently. Then they drop to the floor, retracting back into the office. He hears a series of quick, wheezing hisses.  Station Management is _snoring_.

His head aches viciously, but it’s a small price to pay. He turns around, triumphant, and the violet glow subsides. Dana stares at him with a measure of fear and worry in her eyes, and Cecil thinks that maybe she knows something about how he just shut Station Management up in their box. He makes a mental note to ask her about it later.

Billy looks as if he’s going to turn and run at any minute, his eyes flickering from Cecil to the black sludge on the floor to Dana. Cecil can’t worry about him, though. He’s bought them all some valuable time, and they should take advantage of it while they can. Stooping down, he recovers his gun, sliding it into the back of his trousers.

“We should leave, now,” he says, and heads toward the door, limping slightly from the soreness in his ankle. Dana and Billy both follow him as he stalks down the hall and out the door, to the huddle of interns on the lawn.

“You’re off work for today,” he says. “There’s black ink on the floor in there- somebody should really mop it up before Management wakes up tomorrow morning.”

“Wait- Station Management’s asleep?” a hairy young intern near the front of the huddle asks dubiously. “What did you do?”

“I sang them a lullaby,” Cecil says, annoyed.  “Don’t wake them up. Go have some pizza or something.”  

All the interns merely stare at him, and one of them gestures weakly to his own forehead.

“Um, Cecil, you kinda… well… forgot somethin’…”

Cecil’s aghast to discover that he’s left his third eye open this entire time, and puts a hand up to cover it as he slowly closes it.

“I- I beg your pardon…” Cecil mutters, flustered. He was sure that he’d closed after the confrontation with Station Management, but he hadn’t- it was still gaping open, but it was doing that thing where it went to sleep while it was open, so he couldn’t see anything out of it. How rude of him- the interns must have thought he felt unsafe around them or something.

Billy’s standing right behind him, so when he turns around, in a hurry to get to the car and out of this awkward situation, he knocks into the other man. Billy tumbles to the ground, and Cecil hurries to help him up.

“So sorry, Billy…” he mutters, his cheeks flaming.

But when he puts out a hand to pull him to his feet, Billy picks himself up, looking down after he sees Cecil’s hand.

“It’s ok, never mind,” Billy mutters. He hunches into himself, the same thing he’d did around Steve Carlsburg.

But they’d already dealt with Station Management- there was no need for him to feel frightened out here, in the sun.

 Dana gives him a meaningful look as she slides into the passenger seat, and Cecil gives her a confused one back. She sighs, and points to her forehead, sketching an oval.

Oh _. Oh_.

He’d never thought that the third eye thing could be an issue.

 

 

AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION WHICH EVERYONE KNOWS IS THE ABANDONED MINE SHAFT

            Carlos is staring at the greenish wall straight in front of him, trying not to think of anything at all. When he tries to think, it hurts too much.

The whining whistle is louder than ever before, so he’s given up all pretense of trying to sleep.      He’s taken to trying to sketch out mental patterns on the walls, trying to predict the pulses of green light that occasionally flicker on the wide expanse. It’s a chore that’s mindnumbing enough that it serves as a mild anesthetic, dulling the pain left from the earlier hallucination.

Just when Carlos thinks he’s discovered a predicable trend to the pulsing lights, the light in the room begins to dim. It darkens, and darkens, until he feels like the darkness is a second pair of eyelids, pressing in on his eyes. He’s never experienced darkness like this- at home, there’s always the faint light of Cecil’s e-reader as he browses through safe e-books that won’t turn into bats or smell of rotting corpses, the light of the moon or the stars through the window, the LED lights of the coffee maker and computer.

This darkness does not have any light within it at all- it’s thick and oppressive and cold. He pulls his knees to his chest, for some form of solace.

Then, something touches his shoulder, where the hospital gown has slipped over it and begun a downward journey along his arm. He bites back a scream. It’s probably just a shifting lock of his own hair. Then he feels something resting gently on his knee.

A human hand.

This time he really does let out a yell, squirming away from the touch.

“Oh, Carlos, it’s just me,” says a familiar voice from the dark. “I just wanted to tell you how perfect you are.”

Carlos goes cold. Anger replaces pain. “You are not him. You are not allowed to call me- that.”

“What, perfect Carlos?  I didn’t hear you!”

Not-Cecil giggles blithely as Carlos lets out a growl of frustration. “Shut up, would you?”

“No, I don’t think that I will. That’s not a nice thing to say to your boyfriend, you know!”

“You are not my boyfriend.” Carlos can’t stand how much Not-Cecil sounds like Cecil. In the dark, it’s almost impossible to keep their beautiful, honey-smooth voices apart.

“Oh, I think you are,” Not-Cecil sings out. Two warm hands stroke along the back of his neck, and he shudders at the touch, but as he tries to move away, Not-Cecil digs his nails into the sides of Carlos’ neck.

“Stop touching me,” Carlos growls, his skin pebbled with goosebumps from Not-Cecil’s touch.

“But you shudder so nicely, Carlos.”  The hands slide up along his neck, to play with the backs of his ears.

Carlos’ teeth begin to chatter from the shuddering.

“You’re not even real- you’re just a construct of my imagination- how can you be touching me?”

“I can touch you, so why worry about it,” Not-Cecil smiles. The smile is a part of his speech, in the way his words dance upward at the end. Long fingers take root in his hair, as Carlos sits rigidly against the wall, just hoping that Not-Cecil will get bored the same way Cecil does with new things.  It doesn’t happen.

He pulls away all of a sudden, as Not-Cecil’s hands leave his hair for a second. Getting to his feet, he stands there shaking for  a minute, then he moves across to the other corner.

“Oh, you shouldn’t have moved,” Not-Cecil gloats, his voice fluting across Carlos’ ear, as if he’s right beside him. The threat doesn’t send Carlos’ heart into his throat.

Then he hears the distinctive snip of scissors through the air.

“I’m going to cut all your greasy hair off for trying to get away from me.”

He hears the snip again, right by his temple. “Your Cecil will then find you repulsive- he’ll throw you out of the house. He’ll hate you.”

“Nothing could make Cecil hate me,” Carlos said through clenched teeth. “Nothing could make me hate him.”

“That’s sweet.” He hears a snip by his other ear. “Stupid, but sweet.” Blood begins to drip from his ear where the scissors nicked it. Not-Cecil hacks at his hair one-handed, nicking his scalp several times. The other hand fondles Carlos’ shoulder in a way that makes his flesh squirm.

Carlos is praying for this hallucination to end, and end soon when he hears something, something like the Real Cecil’s voice.

“ ** _The broadcast is cancelled for today.”_** Those mellow tones are nothing like Not-Cecil’s. ** _“This is not a problem. There are no problems.”_**

“Crap.” The snipping stops. The Non-Cecil is gone.

Carlos lets a smile onto his face as he feels his ear and finds it intact.

He leans against the wall, letting the voice of his love wash over him, and as the whine fades away, he finds himself slipping into sleep.

**_“You will go to sleep. You will not wake until tomorrow…”_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Billy reacts to Cecil's third eye. Will it change his mind?  
> And why does Cecil think he's used his Voice in this way before?


	7. Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy freaks out over the monsters of Night Vale. Cecil learns about a past he can't remember.

NIGHT VALE: CECIL’S CAR

            As Cecil pulls away from the curb, and away from the radio station, Billy puts as much distance between himself and Cecil that he can. Sure, the car is tiny, old, he can barely sit upright in it (he’s never even heard of the maker before, which is probably a good thing). Also, once the car is locked, the passenger door seems void of any handle or lock, which Billy discovered as soon as he stepped inside, which, he admitted to himself, was a stupid decision.  He’d almost ripped his nails off by scrabbling on the inside of the featureless, smooth door, before he’d figured out that he wasn’t getting out of the car unless Cecil opened the driver’s door. He didn’t even consider asking to be let out of the car- what use was there in reasoning with a monster who’d probably been playing him from the start?

            In this moment, Billy pointedly doesn’t think of the photo albums, the flower petals with blood, or the frantic way that Cecil seemed to fall apart when Carlos was mentioned. It’s an inconsistency, one that gnaws on the edges of his thoughts as he forms a concise argument against trusting Cecil.

Monsters don’t have lovers. Why would a monster need love?

A monster might kill to be feared, but they would never, ever, try to save their lover at the cost of their own life.

Somehow, Cecil must have seen Billy’s weakness, played with it, exploited him by giving him a cause that he’d find difficult to ignore. That had to be it.

 Despite the rather obvious physical obstacles stopping him from doing what he really wants to do (leaping out of the door and doing what he does best, i.e. running away from this sort of problem), he scrunches himself into the small space between seat and door, ready to leave the moment Cecil stops the car.

He closes his eyes, to get away from this awkward situation. Yet, though he tries, he can’t avoid Cecil there, either. He can’t stop picturing Cecil, the way he looked in the radio station. Those nasty long hands were diving for Cecil’s chest, as if they intended to rip him apart there on the grotty old carpet. Billy had braced himself, wanting to turn away from the bloody spectacle that he feared was eminent, but he found that  he was unable to make the physical connection from his brain to his body. In other words, it was like one of those nightmares where his body would shut down and he became in essence a roving perspective, unable to flinch from seeing and processing, unable to break the hold.

The moment he was fearing never came.

Instead, Cecil closed his eyes, and a pencil- thin stream of pure purple light projected outward from the center of his forehead, striking the outstretched hands of Station Management.

**_“Stop.”_ **

The single word shakes the station. Billy loses his grip on the reception desk, falling to his knees. Cecil’s entire _body_ is glowing now, like an incandescent wire, held too close to fire. The light pools and spreads and billows throughout the room, illuminating even the furthest corners.

He’d been shocked by the fact that Cecil could apparently shoot magical light from his head and use his body as a human flashlight, the light stabbing through his clothing like floodlamps. He’d been relieved, mostly relieved, because Cecil was all right, and nobody was doing any dying now, and it looked as if they wouldn’t be for a while.

Then, Cecil had started speaking, really speaking, his voice ringing out in sonorous tones through the station. The words made no sense to Billy- it was as if Cecil was speaking a foreign language, but it wasn’t like that at all, at the same time. See, Billy could grasp the meaning of the words, but not their actual forms- the words seemed to transcend simple grammar.

Then Station Management reacts to Cecil, snaking its extra arms away under the door with an oozing sound. Then, it begins to hiss, sporadically, like breathing, or snoring.

 Asleep, he surmises.

Then Cecil turned around. Until that moment, Billy had been pretty okay with what was going on- Cecil apparently had laser-vision or something like it, some kind of supercharged powers that let him light up like a moray eel. Also, no one had gotten skewered by Station Management’s wicked claws yet, so it was all good.

Then Billy noticed the gaping _hole_ in the center of Cecil’s forehead.

No, he realized. Not a hole- it was too full, too deliberate. The slightly creased skin that had previously covered it had unfolded into a lashless eyelid.

Beneath it twitched a third eye.

It looked anything but normal, or human, its red sclera red as raw flesh, and surmounted by a deep purple iris. No pupil was present. The entire eye was perhaps twice the size of Cecil’s human eyes, and it was pulsing in time with the light still radiating from Cecil’s body- twice, then a rest, then twice, steady as a heartbeat.

 Billy’s mouth went dry as he realized that it _was_ Cecil’s heartbeat, pulsing out that rhythm. The thrill of horror that goes through him lifts the hairs on the back of his neck. He remembered noticing the deep crease in the center of Cecil’s forehead in the Ralph’s, which meant that Cecil had been sporting this eldritch addition the whole time.  He couldn’t deny it- the eye was part of Cecil, and that meant he’d been working with a monster.

Now, Billy sits in the backseat of Cecil’s car as it putters away from the station, and into the heart of Night Vale. As he opens his eyes, he finds his gaze instantly drawn to the back of Cecil’s messy hair. He’s not sure what other monstrous traits Cecil could manifest. Horns? Tentacles? Dammit, his field was applied mechanics and chemistry, not biology. Or cryptozoology, or whatever this is. He has no idea how this sort of thing could even occur.

He chuckles tiredly as he realizes that he just helped to fight an unnamed ancient horror that apparently runs the radio station, and here he is, trying to catalogue monstrous traits, as if he’s working on a new ray gun or something.

The layer of silence that settles in the car is thick, and uncomfortable. Dana seems to be a habitually quiet person, and though Cecil seemed fairly gregarious before, he’s not spoken for some time now. Despite this fact, he still keeps trying to catch Billy’s eye in the rearview mirror, and Billy has to keep avoiding his gaze.

Naturally, Billy decides he can’t stand the humming tension in the car any longer, and breaks it.

“So, what’s your game, huh? When were you going to tell me that you were a monster?”

“What?” Cecil says, flustered. He turns around in his seat to look at Billy, and narrowly avoids hitting a dog that, for some reason, has a billboard through it that reads “Harlot” in large letters. Dana grabs the wheel before they can hit it, steering the car away from the dog. They stop a few inches away from it. The dog seems unhurt and unfazed, by either the car or the billboard, and scampers away into some bushes. Above the bushes, the billboard bobs momentarily, then disappears.

“Sorry, what?” Cecil repeats. “I don’t like-well - you shouldn’t call people monsters. You could get hurt.”

“Is that a threat? You’d hurt me?” Billy growls.

“No!” Cecil shakes his head violently. “No, I would never-”

“Well, it sure sounded like one,” Billy interrupts. “I’m sorry, but you look like a monster to me. You have some kind of thing – a third eye thing- that lets you shoot light out of your body, and a deep voice that bends Station Management to your will. Those things seem pretty monstrous to me… if you can control Station Management, can you control other things, other people?

“I don’t do that kind of thing-”

“You sure? Because I saw you do it just now. Who’s to say you’re not controlling me-”

Cecil slams on the brakes, even though they are nowhere near a stop sign at the moment. “Look, do I at least get a chance to argue my own case here? You said you wanted an explanation, but you haven’t let me say more than a few words. If you wanted to rant at me, write a editorial, and I’ll feature it tomorrow on the radio station.”

“Be my guest,” Billy replies, with more stiffness than he intended.

“Well, first and foremost, never call anyone in Night Vale ‘ a monster’-  it’s dreadfully species-est, encouraging division between species. Also, I’m fairly patient with  newcomers to our lovely town, so I’ve developed a tough skin- the slurs, the curses, I’ve heard them all. But other inhabitants of the town can be less lenient. You’d stand a poor chance against a five headed dragon.”

“Wait, you know five-headed dragons?”

“There’s one in our local jail now. I am restricted by my human form, but if I was, say, a five headed dragon, you could get pretty singed upon such an insult.”

“Is that what he’s in for? Burning humans to crisps?”

“Actually, no.  He’s there for insurance fraud.”

 

 

Billy takes a deep breath, looking down at his hands, flexes them uncomfortably. Cecil leans forward despite himself.

“So you weren’t planning to kill me and feast on my innards or anything like that?”

Cecil can’t stop himself from grimacing at that image. “No,” he says, shuddering slightly. “Though I can see how you might have received that flawed impression from Station Management- they’re not exactly a good representative…”

He can’t really believe that Billy believed _that_ of him…but it certainly explained Billy’s reaction.

“I just have one other question,” Billy says.

“What?”

“Is the third eye a common thing here in Night Vale? And the voice?”

Cecil pauses before he answers Billy, partially because he needs to think about his answer, and partially because he genuinely can’t remember when he started using his third eye, and he can’t remember using his voice like this without the aid of a microphone.

“The eye… yeah, that’s- that’s not extremely common, but several people have them- generally, it’s not polite to use them when you’re with other people because they’ll either assume you find them frightening, or you’re just bored by them and looking somewhere else in town to see if there’s anything more interesting going on.”

Billy gives a disbelieving laugh. “You mean, it’s like using your phone when you’re with people? You shouldn’t text when you’re having a conversation, that kind of thing?”

“Yes, exactly,” Cecil says, hoping that will cover the topic sufficiently, because he really doesn’t want to talk about his voice. He’s a little frightened of what he was able to do back there. Unconsciously, he finds himself sliding farther into his seat, resting his head against the molded cover of the headrest.

“So the voice then- is that because you’re the Voice of Night Vale, like you said? You can get people to do what the secret police need them to do because you’re the Voice?”

“I- I always assumed- I’m not sure…” Cecil makes himself stop. He can feel the small amount of rapport he’s been able to build with Billy decreasing, and he isn’t too pleased about it. A feeling like panic- no, concern- begins to rise in the pit of his stomach, filling him with a welling ache.

“I- I’ve never used my Voice like that before,” he says in a rush. Billy’s already leaning forward, his eyes narrowed in confusion, new questions trembling on his lips, but Cecil continues before Billy can ask another question.

“I don’t think I have… my voice has never, never sounded like that before. I’ve only heard something like it when I’m on the air, when it’s amplified by sound systems. Artificially, of course, you understand… I’m not… I don’t think-”

“So this is new.” Billy says. Is he disappointed? Cecil thinks that’s what he sounds like, but it’s in a monotone, as if Billy is trying consciously to leach any emotion from the words. Cecil starts to not in assent, when Dana speaks for the first time since they first got into the car.

“It’s not new.”

Cecil turns to her, frowning in confusion. She puts up a hand, apparently taking his response as irritation.

“I’m sorry, Cecil, but you can’t keep lying to him.”

“But I’m not lying,” Cecil protests. To his horror, his voice crackles and pops under the strain of his disbelief at her accusation, and he puts a hand to his mouth. She looks startled at the noise, but shakes her head.

“It’s okay, Cecil. I don’t think it matters anymore, anyway.”

“ _What_ matters?” Billy asks, annoyed, kicking at the back of their seats.

“Cecil, you should probably tell him…”

“I don’t know!” Cecil almost screams. His voice comes out in a thin rasp, and he massages his voice box. Why can’t he remember? This thing that he must have done seems desperately important now, but he can’t even pull an image into his head that could help him. He thinks of using his third eye to scour his memories, but it’s fast asleep, and he doesn’t want to tax it further.

He pulls into an empty parking spot in front of the public library, which is not a safe place, generally, but as long as they don’t go inside the librarians should stay dormant. He leans his head gently forward, to rest his head on the steering wheel.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Dana asks, exasperated. “I thought…

“I can’t remember, okay,” he mumbles into the cool plastic of the steering wheel.

“What?” Dana and Billy demand in chorus.

His head is aching viciously now, and his third eye is twitching in a way that it probably shouldn’t. He straightens up, turning to face them.

“Look, I can’t remember, and I think that maybe it’s a good thing that I can’t remember, but also it could be a bad thing, because I am imagining all the things I could have done and none of them are good things.” He looks at Dana, but she doesn’t meet his eyes.

“Could you tell me, please?”

“It’s public record,” Dana mumbles. “That’s the only reason I know at all- before I came to the station, I did all the research I could on its background…”

“And on mine, too, it seems,” Cecil says. “All the marks of a good intern.” He glances into the backseat. Billy has unstrapped the seatbelt, and is listening intently. “Go on.”

“Right. So I looked up your history, and I found that you started as an intern, when you were only fifteen. The old Voice of Night Vale thought you had promise. You survived being an intern for…  three years, I think… which made the old Voice even more sure that you were cut out to be his successor. He started you on voice lessons, acting lessons…tutoring you privately. Then you stayed late at the station to do homework… and Station Management got rowdy, and you tried to stop them, and started… you know… speaking. You ended up taking down the entire radio station… Station Management started trying to kill you and collapsed the building instead.”

“Right.” Cecil rubs his forehead. “I don’t remember any of this.”

Dana swallows. “Well, I think I know why you don’t remember… the next thing I found was a document of approval for re-education.”

“Oh,” Cecil says. The tiny syllable fills the car, hanging before him like a scarlet letter.

“So, yeah,” Dana says. “You’ve used this voice before, and the effects weren’t good.”

There is silence. Cecil breaks it.

“Ready to leave yet?” Cecil asks Billy. “I can’t remember a good chunk of important stuff, I have a third eye and a really killer Voice, my intern knows more about me than I do, and she’s better at research and overall fighting skills than me. There’s a heightened chance of death, seeing as most of the residents of this town are “monsters,” as you put it. I can take you back to your car, and you can get on with life.”

He hesitates. “Or you could stay, and help save my Carlos, who’s probably wondering if I will ever come and get him out. You’re probably not going to get anything out of it but my gratitude...”

“That’s not right,” Billy says quietly. “I’ll get to see you and Carlos reunited. I don’t need anything but that.”

Cecil has to blink away tears, but somehow one ends up sliding down his nose anyway.

“Right,” he says brightly. “Let’s drive over to Carlos’ lab… I keep my extra machine guns over there…”

“Oh, I won’t need a machine gun,” Billy says, smirking slightly. “I’ve got a freeze ray, a death ray, and a transmatter ray in my duffel- some assembly required, of course, but no weapon’s perfect.” He rubs his own wrist, under his hoodie.

“Did you just stroke your stun ray?” Dana asks.

He blushes. “I suppose.”

“What even are you?” Cecil asks in disbelief.

Billy laughs tightly. “A failed supervillain…”

“I’ll drive over to Carlos’ lab, anyway- it’s barely a block away, and you might need it if you have science stuff to do… you know, if you need to do something to one of those guns…” Cecil says, completely out of his depth.

“If you don’t mind, I’ll go ahead and put my labcoat on in the backseat, to save time,” Billy says, unzipping his duffel.

“Of course,” Cecil smiles.

He thinks that Carlos and Billy will get along just fine.

 

AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION WHICH EVERYONE KNOWS IS THE ABANDONED MINE SHAFT

Cecil smiles down at him, hands toying with Carlos’ long, dark hair. He’s tired, and relaxing against the pillows on their bed, a spreadchart in his hands which he’s supposed to be going over, but he’s given up on it.

Cecil’s just too damn distracting, his surprisingly strong hands combing through Carlos’ hair. He’s pulled most of it into a short, thick braid, and is now arranging the remaining strands into a complicated pattern… Carlos knows he’ll have trouble undoing it in the morning, but Cecil will be there to help him.

As Cecil finishes playing with his hair and moves to toying with his bangs, Carlos grabs one of Cecil’s hands. Slowly, because he’s tired (why is he so tired?) he kisses each long, delicate finger.

“You have beautiful hands,” he tells Cecil, rubbing his lips against the smooth green polish that Cecil applied so carefully this morning. Cecil smiles slowly, a smile that reaches his eyes, and Carlos is pleased to see it, as few smiles do that these days. Cecil leans down, and kisses Carlos on the nose, then the mouth. Carlos grabs his arm, pulls him down into the pillows beside him, and they roll into each other, laughing into each other’s mouths.

They’re kissing in earnest… then…

 

Carlos jerks upright, spitting out water, coughing. While he slept, the cell has filled with water, so slowly that he didn’t notice. The water is room-temperature, which accounts for him not noticing it until it reached his mouth. He stands, unbending himself from the painful position he’d slept in: cross-legged, with his back against the wall. The light has not returned, but neither has not-Cecil, which is a plus. He realizes that since the water isn’t cold, it itself can’t be a new torture… the darkness, plus the room temperature water, indicates an isolation tank. The water that filled his mouth had a salty taste to it, and he can still taste it, disgustingly briny on his lips. Yes, definitely an isolation tank.

The dread begins to set in as he recalls experiments done with isolation tanks. While some people were predispositioned to be unaffected by hallucinations, most people couldn’t help but have natural hallucinations as a result of sensory deprivation, as they let their bodies float on the smooth, body-temperature water. It was just a natural response to being deprived of touch, sound, light…  the brain would automatically invent input to occupy itself.

Whatever they had planned for him, it couldn’t be fun… they’d have a field day with augmenting his natural hallucinations in any way they chose. Already, he was having trouble distinguishing where he ended and the water began- it was up to his neck, and his natural buoyancy was asserting itself… soon, he’d have no choice but to float, or wear himself out trying to keep his head above water.

Soon, his body decides for him. Exhausted, he gives up, letting himself rise to the surface of the water, bobbing gently with the slight current. He recites chemical formulas to occupy his brain, scraps of half remembered songs, the poems that Cecil had Xeroxed and hung above their bed. His own voice echoes off the walls, hollow and worn.

 “And it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant…”  he recites. He fishes for the next words, annoyed because it’s one of his favorite poems, and he should really remember the words. “And… and…”

There’s a splash. Quite close, right beside him. His hand tenses, and he feels Cecil’s note, still inside his hand. “And…”

He can’t think. He can’t even breathe. The not-Cecil is in here with him. He’s sure of it. He can’t make a noise, or Not-Cecil will find him, cut his hair again, mock him.

A voice, but not his, rises to answer him. “Whatever a sun will always sing is you…”

The usurping of this poem _, Cecil’s_ poem, makes Carlos irrationally angry. But he stops, before shouting out insults. The Not-Cecil… is it even Not-Cecil? That sounded, almost-but-not-quite like Cecil’s voice.

“Here is the deepest secret nobody knows,” the voice echoes again, suddenly, and right by Carlos’ ear.

“No!” Carlos lashes out his arms and legs in a breast-stroke, trying his best to get away from the voice- the Voice, which is everywhere now. He tries to cover his ears, but he needs his hands to stay above the surface.

“I am Cecil, Carlos. You can stop lying to yourself now. I am him. There is no Secret Police. There is no Mayor. There is no Sheriff. You and me are the only ones in the world. We are the only ones who matter.”

Carlos sinks below the surface, hoping to kill the noise, but it’s inside his head. Inside his head, where it stays, even when he stabs his fingers into his ears to block it, lets the water fill his mouth and eyes with its saltiness.

“It’s kind of nice to see you fall to pieces. Giving up on what you know… we are all scientists from time to time, right? I guess your time is almost up.”

It chuckles- _he_ chuckles.

“No more perfect scientist Carlos. No more.”

The Voice is inside his head. Cecil’s voice is inside his head.

He lets himself bob to the top of the water.

“No more perfect scientist Carlos. No more.” Puppetlike, his own lips form the words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the link, if you want to read the whole poem that Carlos is reciting: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/179622 It's called [i carry your heart with me (i carry it in] by e.e. cummings.  
> Here's a link to an article about sensory deprivation chambers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_deprivation
> 
> Next time: Cecil, Dana, and Billy form a plan of attack.   
> Carlos doubts reality.


	8. A Plan of Attack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Billy puts his ray guns together, Cecil puts a rescue team together, and Carlos tries to reconcile the two Cecils with what he knows.

CARLOS’ LAB, 3 PM.

As Cecil pulls into the parking lot, Billy looks up, jarred from taking stock of the tools that he’d brought with him in the duffel. Brake fluid, assorted nuts and bolts, and duct tape are just a few of the things he’ll need to get somehow. He can’t believe he forgot the duct tape.

“This is a pizza restaurant,” he observes as he gets out of the car through the door which has mysteriously appeared, once again. He stares with confusion at the blinking neon of the sign that reads “Big Rico’s” and then, underneath, in smaller print, “No one does a slice like Big Rico. NO ONE.”

As Dana grabs his duffel bag for him, he follows her, grateful for the help. His multiple bruises and cuts are beginning to ache again. 

“I’m not complaining or anything,” Billy says as Cecil gets out of the driver’s seat, noticing that there’s also a brightly colored poster in the window that reads, “Come in and dine with us once a week: It’s mandatory!” Alongside the cartoon images of happy families tearing apart pizzas (with both hands and claws) a large official seal appears. APPROVED BY YOUR CITY COUNCIL, it reads in gilt letters that gleam in the afternoon sun. NOW WHEAT AND WHEAT-BYPRODUCT FREE: CERTIFIED.

“Yes, and it’s a very good pizza place,” Cecil says. “Besides the other pizza restaurants that always get burned down in unsolved and uninvestigated cases of arson, yes, it’s the best in town. But no, that’s not the lab- the lab is next door.”

“Well,” Billy says, feeling silly.

Technically, the lab is next door and up a flight of winding, dark stairs. Billy’s almost sure he feels soft, yielding skin under his hand when he grabs the banister- he’s feeling unsteady somehow. But when he shines his penlight at it, it’s just normal wood, pitted and grained in the way that normal wood should be. The lab turns out to be a long, dark room at the top of the stairs. Cecil throws a switch on the wall, and the room comes to life. Billy almost takes a step back, he’s so overwhelmed by the lab.

“This is not what I was expecting,” he manages to get out.

Cecil’s smile drops slightly. “Is it not big enough?” he asks, worriedly.

“No,” Billy says. “It’s beautiful.”

The lab is huge- in fact, it’s easily got to take up half of the entire floor. It’s full of DNA amplifiers, Bunsen burners, microscopes, a couple of computers, and an entire table covered with Geiger counters. Billy is pleased to see a shop area of the lab, complete with circular saws and every kind of bolt he could possibly need, along with a 3-D printer to make every part that he never knew that he needed. There’s even an enormous telescope, standing in a corner, like a huge cannon just waiting to be pulled into battle.

What interests Billy the most is an array of opaque black metal cabinets at the back of the room. Possibly they contain supplies, or experiments in progress, or a mix of both. He’ll have to find an inventory somewhere, so he doesn’t accidently ruin any of Carlos’ experiments.

Despite himself, he feels a quick jab of jealousy- this lab is amazing. He can’t even imagine comparing his makeshift array of stolen and salvaged equipment back at home to this, this paradise. Give him a week in it (and someone to bring him pizza from next door) and he might invent two new ray prototypes. They’d probably be bigger, better, and not as prone to malfunction as his older rays did. He could refine his trans-matter ray, work out those bugs with the reboot system and auxiliary power supply…

“I hope it’s adequate.” Cecil’s voice pulls Billy from his daydream.

“Oh, it’s much more than adequate,” Billy says, breathless. “I should have my rays up and running in-

“Thirty minutes?” Cecil asks hopefully.

Billy almost laughs at the thought of it. “Maybe a couple of hours. I’ll have to run a few tests, make sure they haven’t been damaged en route, that kind of thing. You wouldn’t happen to have an inventory so I can get supplies, would you?”

He slides his goggles around the bandage, pulling them up so that they sit comfortably against his forehead.

Cecil stares around the lab, looking lost. “I don’t know where Carlos would keep that sort of thing… I never got to ask him, I was always more interested in the actual experiments…”

“That’s fine,” Billy says quickly. Cecil looks as if the lab is somehow triggering bad memories for him, and Billy doesn’t want him to break down.

“You’re sure that the lab is all right? Because we could go downstairs if that would work better.”

“Look, Cecil,” Billy says, as gently as he can. “You don’t have to stay in the lab with me if you don’t want to. I can work on my own… I actually work faster that way, if you can believe it... so if you want to go somewhere else, go right ahead.”

Cecil gives him a sad smile as if he knows exactly what Billy’s trying to do. But Billy’s given him an out, and he takes it.

“Dana, let’s go across the hall to theorize our battle plan.”

Billy’s glad to find an inventory taped to one of the cabinets, and finds the things he needs at once. As he begins to assemble the Freeze Ray, the stiff paper in his lab coat pocket begins to dig into the skin just above his heart. He leaves it there, letting it burrow into the skin, although at times the picture’s corners seem unbearably sharp as he gives himself up entirely to the rhythm of mechanical tinkering. His mind soon becomes occupied with troubleshooting the controls of the Freeze Ray, to allow Cecil or Dana to use it with ease, and to avoid the overheating nonsense that it kept pulling. He figures out that it was the fuel chamber that was the issue- it kept releasing excess fuel while the gun was in use, creating excess heat that overfed the laser chambers. It takes him a bare hour to figure out the problem. After assembling the Death Ray and his Trans-Matter ray, he begins revamping the charging platforms of his ray guns to use batteries instead of electrical sockets… he doubts there’ll be an abundance of sockets in the desert.

He’s so absorbed in his project that he doesn’t notice Cecil slipping into the lab to perch on one of the long tables, his head cocked as he watches Billy. He jumps slightly when he gets up to get another part from the table, and sees Cecil sitting there. Though he’s a little confused by Cecil’s sudden scrutiny, Billy continues his work, completing the wiring in the now-portable Freeze Ray charger in record time.

“Which gun is that?” Cecil asks, pointing to the Freeze Ray. “I mean, which kind of ray does it use?”

“It’s a Freeze Ray,” Billy says. “If you want to freeze someone, you just pull the trigger. You need a tripod with this one though,  or a mirror, because otherwise they won’t stay frozen for very long.”

“And that one?” Cecil points to the Trans-Matter Ray.

“It breaks down an object’s molecular structure for easier transportation. Only things though- I tested it out on a rat once, and the results were… not good. And not things you care about, because sometimes, they don’t come out right either.”

He shudders a little at the memory of the rat he’d found running around his apartment. He hadn’t tested the Freeze-Ray on it formally- it had been more a question of getting the thing out of the apartment without having to touch it. But when he’d gone outside, to the hall to look, there’d been, for lack of better words, a red smear, which was all that had re-formed of the rat.

“All right, so we can’t use it on people,” Cecil notes. He jots a few words onto a large piece of coarse paper, and then points to the last gun of the bunch. “So, what’s this one?”

Billy had been reluctant to use this gun at all. He’d actually thought of just keeping it disassembled, in the duffel with his clothes. This prototype was much different from his rudimentary original. He’d switched the fuel: no more Wonderflonium for a gun like this one. He’d redesigned the grip and barrel, but still, its glowing form filled him with cold dread. 

“A Death Ray,” he mutters now, turning to fiddle with a few stray bolts and wrenches that he really didn’t need.

“Sorry?”

“A Death Ray,” he repeats. “I don’t think that we should use it, though. It’s malfunctioned…quite badly in the past.”

“ How badly?”

“Innocent people were killed,” Billy says shortly, and Cecil goes quiet.

“Oh. I’m- I’m sorry.”

Cecil is still frowning at the Death Ray, despite Billy’s attempts to defer the questions. Billy hopes that Cecil will take the hint and stop poking at the subject. In his breast pocket, the photo prods against his chest painfully. He fully expects drops of blood on his t-shirt when he takes the labcoat off.

“Where’s Dana?” he asks, hoping to move Cecil’s mind to other topics.

Cecil’s glad they’ve been able to move past the issue of the Death Ray. It sounds as if it would be a more effective weapon than any of the others in achieving their goals, but Billy obviously had issues with it. As Billy turns back to check part of the Freeze Ray, his hand flits to his breast pocket, pressing at a folded sheet of paper that juts slightly above the top of the pocket. Cecil wonders what it could be, and how it could be connected to the Death Ray.m

“Oh, she’s gone to recruit a few angels who have nothing better to do with their days, and grab the machine guns from my house. I told her I’d keep strategizing with you… she’s already drawn up an extensive rescue plan.”

“Angels? You have… yes, of course you do…” Billy says resignedly.

Cecil slides the thick sheet of butcher paper across the table. He’s quite proud of the time and blood they’ve put into it.

“What did you draw it with?” Billy asks.

“Blood.” Cecil says, trying not to smile at Billy’s attempt to hide his immediate disgust. “My blood, actually.”

“You didn’t use too much, did you? You’re still ok, right?”

Cecil feels himself bristle. “Carlos deserves no less. If this rescue demanded my still beating heart, I would gladly tear it out for him.”

This time, Billy doesn’t look disgusted, he looks… relieved, compassionate, happy? Cecil doesn’t know. He taps the sheet, to bring Billy’s attention back to the plan of attack.

“They’re keeping Carlos in the abandoned mine-shaft, which means we’ll either need to rappel down to the facility or to fly down.”

“That’s what the angels are for?”

“That’s right. Only, that sounds a little- well, disrespectful. When they are present, try to avoid insinuating that they only exist to ferry humans around. I don’t think that they’d take it well.”

Cecil hears a quiet ringing tone, and looks up to see a pair of angels hovering above Billy, a green one and a pink one.

“I suppose that does sound disrespectful. How should I talk to angels instead?”

“You could just talk to us as you’re doing now,” the pink one says.

Billy almost falls, but catches himself on the table. “No way,” he breathes.

Cecil smiles as Billy’s eyes go wide with wonder as he regards the angels’ graceful forms, the contrails of light that seem to fall in their wake. He wonders momentarily what it would be like to see angels for the first time- he can’t visualize the effect that seeing their eight wise eyes and long fingers would produce in a person. Cecil is worried, at first, that Billy will find the angels as monstrous as he found Cecil’s tertiary eye. If Billy acts as though he is repulsed by the angels, the angels might get offended and leave.

 But there’s no hint of any such repulsion in Billy’s visage. Instead, there’s only a boyish wonder in Billy’s eyes, as they flit from the angels’ broad, skeletal wings, to their widely smiling mouths, to their four long fingers.

“I’m Erika,” says the green one, offering a hand to Billy. They shake hands awkwardly, and then the pink one grabs Billy’s hand. “I’m Erika.”

“Wait… you’re both Erika?”

“All angels go by the name Erika,” says Dana from the doorway. Another angel, the black one, is right behind her.

“Old Woman Josie is on a godly errand,” the angel says, “and thus could not attend.”

“Pity,” says Cecil, disappointed at Old Woman Josie’s absence. “She was just vicious when we bowled together. Really first rate arm. She’d be excellent at getting someone out of police custody.”

Dana sets the machine guns down on the ground, and each of the Erikas take one, slinging it over their respective shoulders.

“Dana has informed us that we will be running the duty of transport and extraction,” says the green Erika.  “We are happy to serve, as long as we are armed. The secret police persist in telling all and sundry that we do not exist.  We’d like to remind them of our presence.”

“Ok, that’s how you come in. How do I come in?” Billy asks.

“You’ll come with me and Dana into the facility. You’ll need to use your Freeze Ray to deal with the guards, of which there may be many. Based on what you told me, we could also use the Transmatter Ray to eliminate walls and other barriers.”

“That’s right,” Billy says.

“I am uncertain of how well I could conduct myself while using one of your inventions, so I will not use one. Instead, only you and Dana will bear them.”

Dana elaborates, “We’ll need to get rid of the security cameras, and Cecil will do that… but when he’s using his third eye, he may grow too sapped of strength to carry any gun heavier than his pistol.”

She looks around the circle. “Any objections or additions to the plan?”

No one speaks up.

“All right then.” Cecil says, before he can lose his nerve. “Let’s start this rescue.”

He’s the designated driver, of course, because of his stop-sign immunity.

Billy puts his guns in the trunk, alongside the machine-guns. While Dana takes shotgun Billy and the three other angels all pile into the backseat,. Somehow, they all fit. Cecil suspects some fudging of the space-time law by those angels, but he doesn’t say anything. Somehow, there’s enough seatbelts for everybody, and not even Dana has the answer to that question.

As he closes the trunk of the car, Cecil notices a piece of paper on the ground. There’s no  red flag on it or anywhere near it, so he stoops down and picks it up, unfolding it to make sure he’s not throwing away anything important.

It’s a photograph: a candid shot of a young woman with striking red hair, reading a book. The corners are bent, as if it’s been carried around in a pocket instead of a picture frame. A single word has been written on the back, in carefully elegant handwriting. A name: “Penny.” Someone’s evidently dropped it, so he puts it in his vest pocket, next to his revolver. He’ll have to announce it over the radio, so that whoever dropped it can recover it.

Cecil takes off as fast as his small car can stand, speeding though the middle of Night Vale, headed towards the abandoned mine-shaft.

As he drives, fear begins to build inside him. What if they’ve hurt Carlos? What if they’ve tortured him beyond his limits already?

The dread at what he’ll find in the abandoned mine-shaft almost drowns out the hope of rescuing Carlos.

Almost. Not quite.

 

 

 

 

AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION WHICH EVERYONE KNOWS IS THE ABANDONED MINE SHAFT

He lets himself bob to the top of the water.

“No more perfect scientist Carlos. No more.”

Puppetlike, his own lips form the words.

 

Immediately, Carlos longs to cram the words back inside. Cecil’s doing something to him… the soft sounds of his voice compel, and mold, and drive his actions, until Carlos can’t tell real from false any longer.

A cold hand strokes his cheek, and Carlos’ very sense receptors take notice, rebelling against the touch with a series of shivers.

“Do you like this?” Cecil says.

Carlos can’t stand it. Cecil’s touch is horrible to him. It feels like the hand of a thing long dead, something that should have long ago been eaten by worms.

“No,” Carlos says. “It’s awful.”

“You mean I am worthy of awe. Why Carlos, I’m so flattered.”

Hands in his hair again, toying and playing through the ringlets that form when his hair touches water. Carlos closes his eyes, trying to let his mind sail away from it all.

Somehow, he feels that Cecil is combing through his thoughts as easily as he combs through his hair. That’s a ridiculous thought, of course Cecil’s not inspecting his thoughts.

Is he?

Carlos rears back in the water, yanking away from Cecil’s touch.

Hard hands are on him, a creeping sea of cockroaches. Then his chin is gripped in strong fingers, his head pulled up.

Cecil smashes his mouth painfully against Carlos’. It’s nothing like he remembers. Cecil was always hesitant, careful, gentle. Cecil has changed, and Carlos doesn’t like it. Cecil was never like this…was he?

Carlos can almost remember a poem that Cecil read him, one day when Cecil had off from work. It had rained that day, and flash flooding had washed out all of the roads. Somehow, Cecil had been able to do an emergency broadcast from home, despite the fact that his microphone seemed to lack cables or any form of broadcasting medium whatsoever.

Carlos can almost remember a monster movie night that involved Cecil giggling at the cheesy special effects, laughing as the heroes sped toward their ultimate demises. He’d fallen asleep on the couch, because Cecil could never stay awake during movies, hugging Carlos.

Can he almost remember moments with Cecil, or is he just accurately remembering a dream?

This Cecil is not the same. Is it even Cecil? And where has it gone? It’s vanished.

More to the point, was Cecil himself a hallucination? Has Carlos always been here, floating on this strange dark sea, alone?

There’s something in his hand, poking against the cuts there in a painful fashion. It’s too dark to tell what it is. He runs a finger over it, but he can’t figure out what the thing is.

Maybe it's a flower.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: the grand rescue!


	9. Big Damn Heroes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The big rescue- part 1!

AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION THAT EVERYONE KNOWS IS THE ABANDONED MINESHAFT

Carlos can’t remember the last time he saw the sun. He remembers days where he hated the hot white orb as it blazed away in the sky, unknowing, uncaring of his suffering. Long days, spent out in the field, gathering observations on desert flora, fauna, and other features. But the days all blend together, never any apart. He’d never thought that he would miss the sun, so he hadn’t saved any of the memories to hard drive, as it were: he’d never though hed want a sunburn.

 He misses the sun’s steady heat: his cell is cold, and the thin hospital gown he’s been allowed offers little in the way of warmth. When he sleeps, he curls into himself, anchoring himself in one of the corners to better reflect his own body heat. Still, it seems as though he’s cold all the time now. He sleeps incessantly, because it helps him forget the cold.

He misses the sun’s bright, alternating rays. Now, all the light he has comes from the quietly pulsing white walls. It’s a cold light, not a steady one, and by no means a natural one.

He has been in the small cell for three weeks now, four days, and god knows how many hours. He was not even allowed the luxury of scratching the days on the wall. Instead, he opened the wound in his wrist and marked a thin line in blood on the hem of his hospital gown. He’s learned not to rely on the rising and dimming of the lights in the walls as a marker of time- sometimes they left him in the dark for days, sometimes for only a few hours. He’s learned to time the days by marking when they slid food in through a slot in the wall, (though he rarely has the appetite to eat much of the food) and when they slid a basin through so he could relieve himself. Each event happened three times a day, every day, no matter what they’d decided to do with his lights.

Once he’d tried to shove a hand through the hole that had opened to allow the basin into his cell, as it was much larger than the one that admitted his food, but then the wall had closed around his hand, trapping his wrist in place. It hadn’t hurt, exactly, but it had been uncomfortable. Carlos had flexed his hand on the other side of the wall, making sure that it was still there. When he couldn’t feel his fingers, he’d panicked, jerking at his hand until his wrist was raw. Droplets of blood oozed from the scrapes on his wrist where he’d anchored his nails in a vain attempt to get his hand from the wall, his blood bright scarlet against the white floor.

They’d left him like that for a day, trapped, frightened, unable to reach the food trays that appeared and disappeared on the other side of the room. He’d been too afraid to sleep, kept alert by the dull throbbing in his arm from the odd angle in which he’d been trapped. His thoughts kept him from sleeping- he remembered stories of foxes, wolves, who’d bite their own feet off to free themselves from traps. Carlos chuckled bitterly- the trap was already all around him. There was no need to saw his hand off here.

Eventually, they’d let his hand free- exactly twenty-four hours after he’d stuck it through the hole. His hand was intact, though slightly numb, and all his fingers still worked. The only damage was self-inflicted.

He wished he knew why he was being kept here. Somehow, it seemed as if it would help to know the reason why he was being subjected to this imprisonment.

 He can’t stand the silence, and his mind begs for attention, stultified and useless from lack of input.

Carlos spends most of his days sleeping now. Consciousness is too much of a chore.

 CECIL'S CAR: THE SCRUBLANDS

When Billy opens the car door, the building heat of the desert rises to meet him like a slap across the face. The warm wind dries out his eyes and sinuses in a matter of seconds, and for a moment, he deliberates whether he should just shut the door again for a moment, to catch his breath. In the thirty minutes since they left Carlos’ lab, the sun’s bright rays have only intensified. He’d felt none of the sun’s scathing rays- though Cecil’s car was a tiny tin can, it actually had a tolerable air conditioner. Now, in the scrublands, the sun is intense and unyielding.

 Dana’s waving them over to her, to convene them as if for a council of war. Billy slides out of his seat, and then, close beside him, the pink angel makes a soft coo of protest, following him as he leaves the car. He can feel its chilly breath on the back of his throat, right through the high collar of his labcoat.

Billy’s still not sure how to deal with the angels. He knows they’re celestial beings of great power, but that doesn’t explain why they’ve chosen to take up residence in Night Vale. Or, more to the point, why they’ve chosen to help Cecil in his attempt to rescue Carlos. They seem to be purposeful creatures, and Billy’s glad they’re part of the rescue mission, but he has to admit that the wide, bright eyes that seem to cover their bodies and their strong, wide wings create a majestic and slightly (frightening? intimidating?) overpowering atmosphere. They’re beautiful in the same way that a raging forest fire or a tumbling avalanche inspires awe. He’s glad that they’re on Cecil’s side, and by extension, not _against_ him.

As he steps out of the car and heads over to where Dana has the plan spread out in the back of the car, the pink angel stays right behind him, fluttering its wings rhythmically and stirring up the dirt around him. He sighs as the angel settles behind him. A shadow spreads over him, and he realizes that the angel has spread out its wings as a shade against the sun.

Yes, he’s glad that they’re on his side, but he’s not sure what to do with an angel that seems to have imprinted on him, like some fledging baby bird.

“Where’s the mine shaft?” Billy asks, feeling stupid for needing to ask.

“We’re flying in from here,” Cecil says, rubbing at the lid of his third eye. “Any closer, and they’ll be able to see us coming.”

“I thought you were going to block the cameras.”

“I am, but the car I can’t shield. It’s too large a thing to be hidden by a simple eye-refocusing trick.”

While Cecil reloads his pistol, Dana clears her throat.   
            “Billy, I have a few questions about this ray gun.”

He concentrates on Dana, who’s testing the way that the Trans-Matter Ray feels in her hand.

“Billy, I’m going to need to learn my way around this ray gun. How to transmute stuff, first of all, but also how to avoid transmuting any of ours. Cecil, you should probably figure out how to use it, too, in case… well.”

  She pauses awkwardly, holding the gun out to Billy. He takes it, checking to make sure that the control panel is still operational. He closes his fingers around the hard plastic of the grip, and waves Dana over so she can see what he’s doing. Cecil follows her, taking up a position beside the pink angel.

Billy quickly points out the basic stuff, like the trigger, the carriage return, the fuel reload and release, and the sight. Judging by their nonchalance around guns, both Dana and Cecil seem to have been raised to use and care for such weapons, so that part’s pretty easy, he just wants to go over the basics, because the Trans-matter Ray’s substantially different from any traditional gun. He lets both Cecil and Dana hold, aim and do everything but shoot the Trans-matter Ray, and then he addresses the actual transmuting features of the ray.

            “All right, first thing you need to do is make sure you know where you’re sending this stuff, or it will automatically set everything down about two meters away, which is not what you need when you’re sneaking around a secret government facility. I have a GPS attached, so all you need to do is program in the coordinates. The best place to dump something like walls, etc. is a large, wide open area, like a vacant lot, someplace where it can’t land on anyone, or _around_ someone.”

            “Hardly anyone comes out to these scrublands,” Cecil says. “At least, not since the helicopters started getting more aggressive. May I?”

            Billy hands off the gun, and Cecil taps in the GPS coordinates, handing the gun back to Billy when he finishes.

            Billy takes careful aim, pointing at a largish sagebrush that has a curiously curved trunk.

            “See the sagebrush there, with a bend in its trunk?” Billy asks. Cecil and Dana both nod.

            “Watch it carefully.” He rolls the trigger, and the Trans-Matter Ray emits a burst of white static that surrounds the bush in a pale halo. It disappears instantly, leaving behind only a hollow where the roots were fastened.

            At the same instant, a soft thud sounds out behind them, and Dana  pulls out her knife as she whirls to deal with the threat. But there is no threat, just a sagebrush, uprooted, with a strange bend in its twisted trunk.

            “That’s so cool!” Cecil says in a flurry of excitement. Dana only holds out her hand expectantly, waiting for her turn to try out the gun.

            After both Cecil and Dana have gotten used to the Trans-Matter Ray, Dana slides on the safely, hooking its carrying strap over her shoulder, bolstering it on her hip. Replacement fuel cells dangle in a clutch from her belt, muffled in felt containers that prevent them from ringing out like bells as they strike against each other. Though her mouth is set, her eyes are mobile, betraying a faint hint of apprehensiveness. She ties a scarf around her head, binding her short curly hair out of her face.

            “So, are you still willing to bear us into the mineshaft?” she asks the black angel. They seem to be the unofficial leader of the angelic contingent of the party, and they look to first the green angel.

“I am still willing,” they respond.

 Then the black angel looks to the pink angel, who dips their wings so that their long primaries lightly caress Billy’s shoulders. The other two Erikas laugh at their reaction, and Billy guesses that the pink angel’s response was the equivalent to a human’s emphatic nod. Billy’s still not sure what to make of the angel’s fixation on him… he’s not sure whether it’s polite to ask about it, and he doesn’t want to offend a multi-dimensionally powerful creature. He decides to wait until after the rescue mission succeeds to ask about this issue.

He checks the fuel cells in the Freeze Ray twice, then clicks on the safety and pulls its carrying strap onto his shoulder.

“Ready?” Cecil asks Dana and Billy, and they both nod. Cecil looks to the black angel, who moves behind him to grip his upper arms with strong hands.

Billy feels the arms of the pink angel close around his shoulders, and he tenses up immediately, but makes himself relax. He can’t stop his breathing from catching slightly in his throat at the sudden contact, and the angel looks down at him. The pink angel doesn’t mean to hurt him, they aren’t Captain Hammer. They will not grab him up in a crushing grip in order to fling him through a window or into a fountain with ease. The angel seems to sense his stress, and pauses.

“I’m fine,” Billy says, tilting his head to meet the angel’s eyes. “Do your thing, I’m good with it.”

The angel tilts their head, as if to ask, “Really?”

Billy gives them a quick nod, pulling his goggles down over his eyes. “I’m ready.”

Their hands close tight around his shoulders, and he hears Cecil call out, “Let’s go!”

A blur of lights, sounds and colors stream past his open eyes, a vortex of infinity. The strong grip of Billy’s angel keeps him grounded as it all flows past. Then the color and sound is replaced by darkness and silence, and the scent of dusty cardboard boxes.

Dana turns on a flashlight, and Billy sees that Cecil, Dana, and both of the other Erikas have gotten here without issues. Tall shelves surround them, stacked with files and boxes.

“We’ve taken you to a storeroom within the mineshaft,” the black angel says. “We shall stay behind and create a diversion, while you move toward the detention block.”

“You’ll be able to handle the Secret Police?” Cecil asks.

“They are no great threat. We can escape by flight if needs be, and return when you call for us.”

Billy turns to the pink angel, though he has no idea of what to say.

“Thanks,” he manages, giving the angel a nod. “Thanks for getting us in. Stay safe.”

The pink angel gives Billy’s shoulders a quick brush with their primaries, yet another angel nod, Billy realizes.

He smiles at the angel, a sharp smile that leaves his lips almost as quickly as it came.

With a flutter of wings, the angels disappear in small flashes of light.

Cecil steps from foot to foot, unable to hold still. Mingled worry and excitement surges through him, and he can’t wait to see Carlos, to make sure he’s all right. His Carlos, so near him. But he knows he will not be able to concentrate while he thinks of Carlos, so he pulls his mind abruptly from his lover to focus on the most pressing problem- the security cameras. If he doesn’t have his mind fully on what he’s doing, he could end up sabotaging the entire rescue mission without meaning to.

He opens his third eye is slightly open as he works to reroute all the security cameras, breathing into the twinges of pain that each mental contact with the cameras brings. Though he’s done this before, the mix of incompatible elements that’s in the mix makes this problem painful as well as difficult. He breathes a sigh of relief when the entire ordeal is over and done with, although the continued connection with his third eye creates an unfortunate buzzing sensation behind his forehead.

“It’s done,” he says to Dana and Billy, who are staring at him in mute apprehension, hands on their guns. He slides his own trusty revolver from the inside of his blazer, gripping it in both hands.

“I’ll go first,” he says, unnecessarily, as he’s already poised to lead them through the door and out into the hall.

Crouching slightly, he presses open the door, which is already slightly ajar. There’s no one out there in the hall, and the lights are dim enough that he feels comfortable sliding out through the slim opening between door and lintel. Still, no one anywhere that he can see.

“Come on,” he tells Billy and Dana. They follow him out into the hall, pushing the door open wider to admit the bulk of their guns. It squeaks on its hinges, a loud, rattling sound that makes Cecil cringe. Billy stops, a mortified expression on his face, his hand still on the door.

“Hurry up,” Dana urges, poking him. “We can’t wait… if we stay here long enough, we’re just waiting for them to find us!”

“Sorry.” Billy ducks his head, moving to follow Cecil into the hallway. Once they’re all out of the storeroom, Cecil spots a small map of the mineshaft tacked to the opposite wall.

They’re actually quite close to the re-education facility, and he points this out to the others. However, they’ve landed right next to the cafeteria, which will be full of Secret Police eating dinner, so they’ll have to proceed with care.

“There’s a flight of steps we’ll have to go up,” he says softly. “That will be the hardest part- if anyone finds us there, we could be trapped.”

“We could divide forces,” Billy suggests. “Somebody could go up one staircase, and somebody could go up the other one.”

“That would work… but there’s only one staircase,” Dana says. “They knew what they were doing when they revamped this place. If I was holding prisoners in a top-secret facility, I’d make sure they only had one way of escape, too.”

Cecil nods. “We’ll just have to get up there as quickly as possible. Billy, you should go first, so you can Freeze anyone we meet before they can sound an alarm.”

“Right.” Billy takes the lead, his white labcoat rippling in the draft coming down the passage. He still has those thick, opaque goggles on, and Cecil wishes he would take them off, because he can’t see Billy’s eyes with them on, to gauge his expressions. They’re not like the clear plastic safety goggles that Carlos dons when he’s working.

They reach the bend in the passage without incident, and Cecil peers around Billy to see around the corner. Members of the Secret Police are filtering in and out of a large set of double doors at the end of this passage- the cafeteria. In the middle of the passage, Cecil can see another set of double doors, this set made of plexiglass or something like it. Through the glass, he can see stairs.

“Ready?” he mouths to the others. “We’re going to have to run.”

First Dana, then Billy nods in affirmation. Cecil waits for a lull in the cafeteria traffic, and then he lunges forward. When Cecil moves, so do the others, he can feel them right behind him. Cecil closes his hand around the door handle, but it won’t open. Locked.

Dana elbows him out of the way, aiming the Trans-Matter ray at the doors. They glow for an instant, then vanish, presumably into the scrublands. Somehow, no one notices the blue glow of light that fills the hallway. Billy covers Dana as she slides through the door behind Cecil, and then follows them through the door himself. Cecil keeps moving, his gun up and ready as he traverses the stairs. It’s impossible to keep from making noise here: the steps are slightly creaky, but they don’t have time to worry about it now.

Cecil is first to reach the top of the stairs. He comes out into a large lab, which is not what he was expecting. Prison cells yes, torture devices, yes, but not this clean, streamlined space. Banks of glass tanks, cubeshaped, stand everywhere in neat mathematical rows, a control panel of sorts affixed to each one. There must be at least fifty of them in this long, cold room, but only one of them is attended by four people in white lab coats.

Carlos.

 Of course, it had to be the furthest one.

Billy is right behind Cecil as he runs toward the glass tank, his heart thumping out _CarlosCarlosCarlos,_ The run seems to take half of forever, but somehow, the secret police don’t look up at him while he’s hurrying toward his Carlos. Cecil slides to a stop, and then one of them does look at him, but then Billy points the freeze ray at her, immobilizing her. The other secret police drop what they’re doing, and go for their weapons, but Dana is already pointing the Trans-Matter ray at them, rounding them up into the corner, where she ties them up with their own silk ties and leather belts.

“Don’t make a sound,” she growls.

“Wh-what do you want?” asks one of them.

But then, Cecil’s ignoring them- he’s spotted his Carlos in the tank.

He presses his face to the glass, staring in at Carlos, who’s lying with his arms wrapped around his knees, his body wedged into one of the corners. Carlos’ hair is unkept, matted, and long, flopping over his eyes so that Cecil can barely see if his eyes are open or shut. Funny... he didn’t remember Carlos’ hair being that long…

“Carlos!” Cecil pounds on the glass, hoping that Carlos can hear him. Carlos doesn’t move. Then Cecil has an awful idea. They’ve killed Carlos, his Carlos.

“ANSWER ME!” he roars. “Please, Carlos, answer me!”

“He can’t hear you,” one of the secret police says. “We have him in a simulation. He can’t hear any of us. ”

Cecil steps forward, jerking the man to his feet. He sees a small nametag on the man’s lab coat. “Answer me, _Jerry_. What did you do to him? You tell me what you did.” Cecil feels his Voice bleeding through into his normal timbre, and the secret policeman shudders.

“We’ve applied a temporal shift that accelerates the rate at which he experiences time. For you, it’s been a day. For him, three and a half weeks.”

_“Why?”_

The man looks down at his shoes, and Cecil levers his chin up with his pistol. “Oh, no, Jerry. You don’t get to look down. You get to look me in the eye and explain exactly what you did to my boyfriend so I can fix it. _Now.”_

Jerry gulps, forcing himself to meet Cecil’s eyes. “We needed time to speed up the process,” he admits. “Re-education takes time, it takes finesse, you can’t rush it. He’s done very well, I must say.”

“What does that mean, _Jerry_? I want him out of there, before you do any more damage!” Over his shoulder, he shouts, “Billy, can you get him out of there?”

Billy has been examining the control panel, but he looks lost. “I can’t figure out the controls- they’re using some kind of alchemical notation. I’m afraid to do anything- I might make things worse.”

Cecil’s grip tightens on his pistol, and he presses it against Jerry’s jaw.

The man closes his eyes. “I can take him out of the time stream if you’ll let me at the controls. It’s reversible- please don’t- don’t shoot me, _please_.”

Cecil pulls the technician to his feet, shoving him forward to stand in front of the controls.

“Do it,” Cecil growls, keeping the pistol trained on him as he unravels the knotted tie that imprisons Jerry’s hands. “If I notice Carlos reacting as if he’s being hurt in any way-

“You’ll end me, I get the picture,” Jerry says, running his fingers over the controls with the ease of a concert pianist. He moves switches, presses buttons, and moniters ranks of flashing lights, none of which Cecil understands. Finally, he steps away from the controls. Billy reties Jerry’s hands.

“That’s it,” Jerry says.

One of the sides of the cube slides upward. Cecil doesn’t feel himself move, but he must have, because he’s at Carlos’s side before he has time to breathe. All he wants to do is hug Carlos, but first, he has to wake him up.

Cecil kneels down, touches Carlos lightly on the shoulder, as he leans in to kiss him on the forehead.

Carlos shudders awake at the touch of Cecil’s lips, and raises his head slowly, meeting Cecil’s eyes. Cecil’s expecting happiness, relief, love in Carlos’ eyes. Instead, they’re dull. Only a glimmer of hope lingers. What had they done to him?

“Carlos, I’m here to take you home.” Cecil says, reaching out to grab Carlos’ hand. But Carlos jerks his hand away, shying away from Cecil’s light touch on his shoulder. He pulls away from Cecil, moving further into the corner.

“Who are you?” he asks.


	10. reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter is a week late. I blame its lateness on the two tests I had to study for, and the twenty-page paper I had to write. We will now resume our regularly scheduled programming.

Cecil can’t believe the words that just came out of Carlos’ mouth. In fact, Cecil hopes that he misheard Carlos- maybe the only time in his life that he’s wished that.“What?”

“I don’t know you,” Carlos repeated, looking into Cecil’s eyes. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before in my life. Are you one of them?”

“No!” Cecil almost shouts, which doesn’t help matters much. Carlos looks warily at him, and Cecil realizes that his outburst may have very well exacerbated the situation. “No, I’m not one of the Secret Police. I’m …” He’s about to say _boyfriend_ , but then remembers that Carlos didn’t recognize him the slightest bit, so claiming he’s his boyfriend will probably create an even worse situation.

“I’m a friend. I’m Cecil, and I came to rescue you… you left a note when they took you, and I’ve been hunting you down. Are you sure that you don’t remember me? At all?”

Carlos shakes his head. “I’m really sorry, but I seem to have… gaps…”

Every word makes Cecil’s heart quiver in fear, but he doesn’t show it as he asks Carlos another question. “What do you remember?” He waits, his breath tight in his chest.

Carlos looks down at his hands, frowning. “I remember coming to Night Vale. I remember I have a lab by the Big Rico’s. There are all these strange rules that I have to follow, and there’s a house that doesn’t exist… and the clocks don’t work...”

“Do you remember why they locked you up here?”

He grimaces, rubbing his forehead with a knuckle. “I don’t know why they locked me up, they did it to mess with me somehow, and that’s all I know… I don’t remember much of it, honestly…”

He attempts to get up, but slides back down, groaning. Cecil slides a hand around his shoulders before he realizes he’s doing it, but Carlos doesn’t push him aside. Cecil chooses to believe that somewhere inside Carlos there’s at least a faint memory of him, some tactile remembrance lingering.

“Don’t get up yet, Carlos. We’re going to get you out, don’t worry, but you need to move slow, _mi vida_.” When Carlos doesn’t respond with a whispered “ _Querido_ ,” but a bewildered look instead, Cecil realizes that he’s messed up. He should have thought, he should have remembered Carlos wouldn’t understand now, but it hurts, just the same.

Without thinking, he used the name that he’s taken to calling Carlos in moments of great peril or distress… it was something that they would do, as a sort of way to check in after danger had come, and passed over, to reassure each other. More than that, even, it was a way of saying “I’m all right, I can get through anything, I can survive as long as you’re here with me.”

Carlos had started it, so it was his fault, really. It had been a harder contract negotiation season at NVCR than usual, and when Cecil got home, trembling from a mixture of fear and adrenaline, Carlos had whispered in his ear, “ _Querido_ , are you all right?”

Of course, Cecil wanted something to call Carlos, and after that whispered _Querido_ , “perfect” just didn’t sound lyrical enough. Cecil had wheedled Carlos into giving him a crash course in Spanish endearments, and Cecil had picked _mi vida_ … my life. It seemed appropriate. Unlike “perfect,” it was not a term to be used lightly, but only after the greatest storms, the greatest perils had passed.

Now, Carlos only looks back in Cecil in bewilderment, and Cecil feels bits of his heart flaking away.

 But instead of becoming despondent, he calls out, “Billy, Dana, can one of you get Carlos a chair… he’s pretty exhausted.”

Billy grabs a chair and moves it right beside the door of the glass cell, while Cecil slides has arm tighter around Carlos’s shoulders, helping him from the crouched position to his feet. They shuffle together out of the cell, and Carlos slides into the chair with obvious relief. Cecil notices bruises on Carlos’ knees and elbows, and feels the anger that’s been bubbling inside him ever since he discovered Carlos’ re-education intensify.

Cecil stalks toward Jerry, turning on him with a rage-filled hiss. “What did you do to him? I want the particulars, the little details… if you lie to me I will not be responsible for my actions!”

“This again,” Jerry drawls infuriatingly. "I’d thought you’d have realized it by now… you’ve had ample time to talk with him.”

Cecil grits his teeth. “Tell me everything.”

“Oh, all right. All we did was completely expunge any memory of you from his brain, seamlessly, we had just finished when you lot barged in here… you should be glad we stopped at that, or-”

“Or what?” Cecil snaps his fingers. “You know what? I don’t care. I realize you just told me a lie. Your life is on the line here, let me remind you, so please think back, remember how I interrupted you before you could finish!”

“What?”

“You said you finished wiping his memory, but he has gaps, which he shouldn’t have. You must not have finished the process.”

“All right, maybe we weren’t completely done, but-”

Cecil casually slides the barrel of the gun beneath the man’s temple. “I would advise you to think, very, very carefully, about what you’re going to say.”

Jerry gulps. “What do you want me to say?”

“Can Carlos’ memory be fixed?”

Jerry grimaces. “Why would we want to do something like that?”

“You tell me,” Cecil says evenly, smooth as if he’s describing the community calendar on the radio. “Why did you take his memories in the first place?”  
            “He made you a liability,” Jerry answers instantly. “You weren’t paying attention to the news, you moved in together, it was a mess…”

 _“We were in love,”_ Cecil growled into the other man’s face. “Of course it was a mess! You _used_ Carlos, you treated him like he wasn’t even a person, just to get to me?”

 “It was a job well done,” Jerry sneers. “I won’t help you reverse the process…”

“Can any of you reverse the process?” Dana asks the other lab techs. One of them, a lanky young woman, raises her hand so fast it’s a blur. Her name tag reads “Amy.”

“Then we won’t be needing you then,” Cecil says to Jerry, and shoots him in the shoulder. As Jerry begins to cry out, Cecil leans over and whispers in his ear, “ ** _Shut up_**.”

Jerry’s lips slide shut, with a sound like a staple being driven into paper.

“Right,” Cecil says, turning around. Billy is helping Carlos on with his labcoat, and Cecil is gratified to see how much better Carlos looks with it on- he’s standing straight, despite his obvious ill health, and looks more self-confident than he did before.

“I’ve called the angels for extraction,” Dana says, slipping her cellphone back into her jacket. “They’re working their way down here now.”

“Right,” Cecil says, barely listening. “Have them get you, Billy, and Carlos out first, then have them come back for me, and Amy here.”

“What?” Dana says, her brows tightly drawn with confusion. “No way am I leaving you alone here! The angels can take Billy, Carlos and Amy out, then come back for us!”

She crosses her arms in a way that indicates she will not be moved by any pleas, and Cecil gives in. “Right, but keep the Trans-Matter Ray on you, I’ve only got my pistol.”

A quick flapping of wings indicate the angels’ arrival. The black and green angels look fine, but the pink angel is limping slightly. “This Erika is injured,” says the green angel. “They can only make one flight, and one flight only before they must rest and restore themself. I and this other Erika will return for you and Cecil, Dana.”

All three Erikas disappear, taking with them Amy, Billy, and Carlos.

“I have an idea,” Cecil says. Dana looks worried, but he’s already turned to the other lab technicians, unbinding them, but before they can make a sound, he’s speaking.

“ ** _Why don’t you go find the other Secret Police, and engage in a friendly round of screaming your fears into the aether?”_** Cecil suggests. **_“Stop when I tell you to stop.”_**

They scurry off, taking Jerry with them, who now seems to be unaware of his gunshot wound, and instead is playing with some scraps of paper.

 Cecil turns to Dana with a grin. She looks taken aback by his sudden vindictiveness, but not surprised.

“I’m not going to tell them to stop.”

 

Billy can tell the difference in his angel’s flight- they are halting, slow when they should be fast, fast when they should be slow, and it worries him, because it seems to pain Erika. When they finally land in the desert, he knows something’s wrong. They don’t seem to be in the right place- there’s no sign of Cecil’s car, for one thing, and there’s a large concrete building in front of them, for another. They’re no longer in the scrublands, either, for the slopes here are not covered in sagebrush and creosote, but in sand, and every so often a stand of scrubby brush or cacti.

“Erika?” he asks his angel. “Do you know where we are?”

They shake their head, and when Billy takes a closer look at the angel, he sees green tears trickling from their eyes. The other two angels are already there, along with Carlos and Amy, but Billy is too concerned about his angel to pay attention to them.

 “What’s wrong?” he asks, worried. “What’s wrong, Erika?”

They put a hand to their stomach, and Billy stares at the green ichor soaking their robe.

“Oh, no, no, no,” he babbles, pressing a hand to their stomach. It’s the first thing that pops into his head. Pressure, gotta apply pressure to wounds…but the stuff coming from the wound isn’t even _red_ , it’s green, and it’s everywhere… what if Erika has a different type of circulatory system, what if he can’t save them… Erika’s pink face is going paler and paler, and he know that, at least, is not a good sign.

Carlos is already beside Erika, guiding them down to the hard-packed sand, pillowing their head on his arm, Amy standing close behind him.

“Help me,” Carlos says to Erika. “Can you tell me what you feel?”

“That Erika doesn’t talk,” says the green angel. “They communicate in other ways. Ways that only other Erikas can hear.”

“Well, what are they saying now?” Billy asks.

The green angel shakes their head. “They are in too much pain to communicate.”

“Could you possibly try again?” Billy requests, hoping that they could garner more information.

The green angel closes their eyes, taking on an attitude of listening, then shakes their head rapidly, as if a fly has been bothering them. “They show me only pain. Located… in the diaphragm?”

Billy looks to Carlos hopefully- he has no idea what a diaphragm is.

“Muscle controlling the lungs,” Carlos mutters distractedly. “Could cause problems, but not if we get them to my lab, quickly.”

The black angel speaks. “There is a Good Samaritan approaching. He will help, do not fear.”

“How soon?” Carlos asks. “We need help now, not later…”

They nod, and raise one skeletal hand in an attempt at a thumbs-up. “You will receive help within the half-hour.”

Carlos nods. “They should be all right, if we can get them quickly to my lab.”

The green angel beckons. “We must return to gather Palmer and Dana from the field of battle before they are obliterated. I shall return to claim Erika. Keep them safe.” They vanish, and the black Erika looks after them, pausing for a moment, clearly wanting to stay.

“Help them,” they say over their shoulder, and vanish too.

Billy turns back to see Carlos wrestling a scalpel away from Amy.

“What were you doing!” he demanded angrily as Carlos finally wrenched the thing from her grasp.

“It’s not supposed to exist!” she snapped. “Clearly it’s a threat to us- it would be better if we were to kill it, quickly, before the others come back.”

“You are so stupid,” Billy says in disbelief. “Look at Erika, they’re bleeding!”

Carlos turns Amy loose, and she immediately tries to snatch the scalpel back. He pushes her away, towards Billy. He knows he won’t be able to match her physically, so he uses the Freeze Ray to immobilize her, setting it up on its collapsible stand so that he can help Carlos.

Carlos says to Erika, his voice soft and gentle, “I’m going to cut into your robe, okay? I need to do it to see the wound.”

Erika nods, twice in quick succession, and Billy holds the robe steady so that Carlos can cut it away from the large puddle of spreading ichor. He sucks in a noise of worry when he sees the puncture wound- Erika’s been stabbed, deeply, right below their ribcage. Carlos’ busy hands still when he sees the wound as well, and Billy knows it’s worse than he thought.

“There’s no way we can tend to the wound out here,” Carlos says, folding some of the cut away robe into a pad. “Press this into the wound, maintain pressure,” he says. “For Erika’s sake, I hope that they were right.”

Billy holds his breath, doing his best not to breathe in the ichor, but the smell of crushed leaves fill his nose anyway. He looks anywhere but at his own gloved hands, which are covered in ichor. He surveys the landscape, humming under his breath to Erika as he presses as hard as he dares against the wound. A cloud of dust is building, and he hopes it’s not a sandstorm or anything like that, because they have no way of finding shelter- they certainly can’t go back to the mineshaft, and Cecil’s car is not in sight. He points it out to Carlos.

“See that cloud of dust?”

Carlos raises his head, and peers at the oncoming cloud. “It looks as if it’s coming this way,” he says.

Before he finishes speaking, the cloud has tripled in size, and Billy thinks he can spy headlights, projecting though the haze of churned-up sand.

“It’s a car…” he says slowly.

The cloud of dust is upon them now, and then it slowly settles. A tan Corolla with mismatched, old hubcaps stands before them. Billy thinks that somehow it looks familiar, but he’s too busy coughing and waving the dust away from Erika that he doesn’t recognize the driver until he gets out.

“Steve Carlsberg?” Billy asks incredulously.

“That’s me,” the man says. “Looks like you’re in some trouble here…” He walks over, despite Billy’s bristling when he draws near.

“An angel… you two are in more trouble than I thought…” he says. “I told you that getting involved with Cecil Palmer wouldn’t lead you anywhere good, didn’t I?”

“You did,” Billy says shortly. He hopes that Carlsberg leaves soon. That Good Samaritan should be here any moment, at least, accord to what the angel said…

“Well, let’s get them in the car,” Steve Carlsberg says quickly. Billy shakes off his shock at once, and he and Carlos move to either side of Erika, while Steve holds open the car door. Carefully, they place Erika on the backseat, and Billy slides in, too, pillowing their head on his knees.  

“We need to get Erika back to my lab,” Carlos tells Steve, taking shotgun. “Otherwise we’ll never make it in time.”

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: Steve Carlsberg is surprised. That's not easy to do.

**Author's Note:**

> This work updates Saturdays/Sunday mornings  
> I've made a tumblr for my fic: [ teethofthegale](http://teethofthegale.tumblr.com/)


End file.
